Max Verstappen exit? What Red Bull and Mercedes have said

Max Verstappen to Mercedes: What have the parties involved said about the continued rumours?

Verstappen and Russell are, on paper, in two very different situations in their respective Formula 1 contracts.

Back in 2022, Verstappen signed a bumper five-year contract extension with Red Bull in a deal that will keep him at the team until at least the end of the 2028 season.

Russell’s contracts have been far shorter, with the Briton signing a two-year extension in 2023 to extend his stay with Mercedes until the end of 2025.

As such, Verstappen still has three years to run on his contract while Russell’s has entered its final six months.

And with Mercedes having signed Toto Wolff’s protégé Kimi Antonelli last year, albeit on a one-year deal, the more recent Verstappen rumour has the Dutchman replacing Russell, not Antonelli.

Russell fired up that rumour again in Austria when he was asked about his Formula 1 future.

Although he has been enjoying his strongest start to a season in F1 2025, and won the Canadian Grand Prix, Mercedes has yet to agree an extension with the four-time Grand Prix winner, fuelling the Verstappen rumour.

Russell added to that.

“As Mercedes, they want to be back on top,” he told Sky F1. “And if you’re going to be back on top, you need to make sure you’ve got the best drivers, the best engineers, the best pit crew and that’s what Mercedes are chasing.

“So it’s only normal that conversations with the likes of Verstappen are ongoing.

“But from my side, if I’m performing as I’m doing, what have I got to be concerned about? There are two seats in every Formula 1 team.”

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Red Bull all but refuted that as Helmut Marko bit back.

“What’s up with him now?” said the motorsport advisor. “Russell does talk, but I thought he had a contract for next year. That must have changed since Montreal. So that victory actually damaged him.

“We can’t actually take this seriously. Russell just talks too much.”

While a clause in Verstappen’s contract is known to exist, it’s believed that requires the Dutchman to be outside the top four following the Hungarian Grand Prix.

The Dutchman currently sits third in the drivers’ standings with 155 points to his name, nine clear of Russell in fourth and 36 ahead of Charles Leclerc in fifth – a gap that closed by 15 points in Austria owing to the Red Bull driver’s opening lap exit.

“I assume that you take advantage of a race like this, but you have to allow it again, and I think you can leave it at that now,” he said, shutting down ORF’s question about Verstappen’s future.

“He has a contract until 2028, like all top teams; there are release clauses based on performance, and as things stand, there’s no reason at all why this contract couldn’t be fulfilled.

“They are currently such that there is no concern whatsoever about an exit.

“You don’t get any details! Unfortunately, I find it difficult to calculate the details of the points difference, and I don’t remember them either.”

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner called it a “lot of noise” from Russell, adding that the constant speculation about Verstappen’s future, despite his long-term contract, was irking the four-time World Champion.

“It’s a lot of noise,” said Horner. “I think Max gets quite annoyed by it and we’re very clear with the contract that we have with Max until 2028, so anything is entirely speculative that is being said. But we tend not to pay too much attention to it.

“I can imagine,” he continued, “that George is frustrated he hasn’t been given a contract yet, but that’s between him and his team.

“But the situation with Max, we know clearly where we’re at and, obviously, as does Max.

“Everything is subject to noise and, obviously, within any contract, it remains confidential between the parties.”

Toto Wolff, though, wouldn’t confirm or deny Russell’s claim that he is in negotiations with Verstappen.

“We are going into territory that I don’t want to discuss out here,” he told Sky. “But people talk, people explore and most important is that in our organisation we are transparent, but it doesn’t change a millimetre of my opinion of George, his abilities or anything else.

“Whether I like it or not, I like what George says and I’m always supportive of the driver and there is no such thing as saying things I wouldn’t want him to say.

“I think we are very transparent in the team, what we do, what we plan and we’ve been like that since I was put in charge of that, so that’s not the issue.

“At the moment, clearly you need to explore what’s happening in the future.

“But it doesn’t change anything of what I said before, about George or about Kimi or about the line-up that I’m extremely happy of having.”

Wolff was referring his comment a few months back that he does “not flirt with others when we have a good relationship.” He was asked what had changed since, and gave the biggest hint yet that there may be something to Russell’s claim.

“Define ‘flirting’,” he said. “No, nothing changed. There is no flirt in that sense. You can flirt or you have conversations.”

Pressed on whether it would be the Briton or Kimi Antonelli who would make way should a deal with Verstappen come off, Wolff replied: “You make it sound like that we have been asking ‘when do you want to join’ and ‘what are the terms’. That’s not how it is and how it works. I come back to my previous answer: I want to just have the conversations behind closed doors, not town halls.”

So what’s next for Verstappen, Russell, Red Bull and Mercedes?

Horner seems to think nothing, saying: “We know what the situation is with Max. We know what the contracts are with Max, and the rest is all noise that’s not coming from here.”

Wolff seems to think maybe, but maybe not: “I think I give it a very little probability that this is going to happen.”

But, he added: “There is a four-time World Champion that needs to decide what he’s going to do in the future, and that is just, as a team principal, you need to see where that is going.”

Which leaves the final word to Max Verstappen.

“I do not have to add much to that,” the 27-year-old told Viaplay. “The more I say about it, the more it will be reported in the media. And I certainly do not want that. I determine my own future.”