Will Max Verstappen Actually Move To Mercedes?

To put it simply, who wouldn’t want to have a Max Verstappen driving for one’s team? It is, after all, no lame driver. Max Verstappen, despite being a few years away from touching 30 (years), already has a humungous win tally against his name.

How else would one describe the achievement of a young F1 driver who has to his name no fewer than 61 Grand Prix victories in the top flight of Motorsport?

As a matter of fact, the number of race wins- and one says with due respect- earned by Kimi Raikkonen, Felipe Massa and Jenson Button, two of them world champions barely comes close to the race wins already under Verstappen’s belt.

When compared to the widely noted trinity, Verstappen has fourteen more wins to his name. Which somewhere goes to explain why he is so ever in demand? And make no mistake; that is despite it being widely known that as of today, Max Verstappen is fully committed to a long term future at his Red Bull team.

But then in here lies a common question.

What could happen to the racing future of Verstappen in the year 2026, a period of time where several changes, some of them drastic, would dominate the sport? Moreover, what could happen in the face of the real ninja force behind Red Bull’s rocketship, Adrian Newey leaving the team at the beginning of 2025 or somewhere during the next season? That is if at all Mr. Newey, a timeless legend of the sport, moves on from Red Bull.

Would Max Verstappen still continue at Red Bull given his unbridled love for the team?

We don’t know as of yet. But what is clearly evident is that someone like a Mercedes is clearly aspiring to have the great Dutch driver race with them at a certain period of time. In an ideal world, they would love to have Max drive for them sooner than they anticipate with the knowledge that nearly no one knows how things may unfold in the topsy turvy world of Formula 1.

Now, the above line of thought actually stems from a recent comment made rather enterprisingly by none other than the Mercedes Chairman, Mr. Källenius in respect to the Max Verstappen question.

Not long after it became popular F1 grapevine that someone like Toto Wolff himself was in conversation (in a certain capacity) with Max Verstappen to move to Mercedes, it became known that there was interest from the larger Mercedes group as well to hire the multiple world champion.

Having said that, in a recent interaction with Sky Sports in Europe, Mr. Källenius was of the view that Max would look good in Mercedes gear. Can the man, therefore, who currently dons dark blue racing overalls fetch gold for the Silver Arrows at some point?

A long shot, right?

Though, what’s clear is that Verstappen is committed to Red Bull until the completion of the 2028 FIA Formula 1 World Championship season. He had found a contract extension in lines with a brilliant maiden title triumph, albeit an equally debatable one (for little fault of his own), as seen in the year 2021. Ever since then, there’s been a general feeling that Max won’t abdicate his charge or responsibility of steering Red Bull to further heights.

But then who knows how things may take shape in the future? It is only because the competition on the grid is likely to, though may not, change given the 2026 F1 regulations that Mercedes sense a chance to recruit the winner of the 2024 Spanish Grand Prix.

However, on his part, Max Verstappen is yet to reflect on whether he’d like to move away. This, doubtlessly, could be one of the main talking points of the sport in the near future.