Why Verstappen to Mercedes in 2025 is starting to make more sense

The smart and sensible money remains on Max Verstappen being at Red Bull for the 2025 season as a four-time world champion looking to add a fifth crown to his CV. 

He is tied down at Milton Keynes, on paper at least, until the end of the 2028 season and in Austria, when asked the direct question of would he be staying for next term, said: "Yes, we’re already also working on next year’s car. 

"When you’re very focused on that, that means that you’re also driving for the team."

Despite Toto Wolff going on the charm offensive to try and soften the blow of Lewis Hamilton defecting to Ferrari, Verstappen and Red Bull appeared to be a certainty going into the final year of this set of regulations. 

It is still the most overwhelmingly obvious outcome but in recent weeks, the needle has shifted and shortened the odds on what perhaps could be the biggest bombshell in driver market history, even surpassing Hamilton to Ferrari. 

The money on Verstappen staying

The first major rumblings of discontent in the Verstappen-Red Bull alliance came at the season-opener in Bahrain when civil war broke out in the team after the internal investigation into Christian Horner and allegations of improper conduct was concluded. 

Horner denies the allegations against him, but a power struggle developed with him in one corner backed by the Thai majority shareholders and Jos Verstappen, Helmut Marko, and Oliver Mintzlaff in the other. 

Max Verstappen himself was caught somewhat in the cross-fire, but after tensions cooled, slightly, in Saudi Arabia next time out, he hinted that if motorsport advisor and long-term backer Marko was to leave the team not of his own accord, then his own future would be in doubt. 

A threat maybe, but the general consensus was that whatever internal rumblings could be ridden out for 2024 and 2025 given the expected dominance of the Red Bull package, with the team enjoying a chasm between it and the rest of the field in '23. 

Verstappen was easily tipped to win the 2024 crown and with that in his pocket, a procession towards the 2025 title was also expected. Winning races and championships can paper over even the deepest of cracks. 

And it was going well up until the Austrian GP with Verstappen taking seven wins from the 10 races for a comfortable championship lead, even if McLaren appeared to have the fastest car and Mercedes coming back into the mix. 

Herein lies another Red Bull problem: the car.

Red Bull's car problem

In many ways, the RB19 machine of 2023 was a fluke. 

It was a car at the very highest limit of what was possible from this set of technical regulations coming up against a gaggle of teams who either could not design a car properly in the first place or could not upgrade it fast enough to keep pace and not fall away. 

It was a perfect storm, with Horner warning of the expected field convergence as Red Bull peaked and others, especially McLaren, continued to mature and develop their car. 

For the first time in the ground effects era, a Red Bull upgrade failed with the minor floor package introduced at Imola with Marko among the voices urging for further updates to simply stay ahead. 

Reaching the development of the car's ceiling and still extracting performance from it is something on the desk of technical director Pierre Wache, whom the team was keen to play up in the fallout of the resignation of Adrian Newey, as Horner explained the situation the team is facing.

"With stable regulations and marginal gains, you're into a curve where the gains are going to become harder and harder to find," he explained to media including RacingNews365. 

"That's normal. That's the normal cycle of having been in this business for 20 years, that's what happens. 

"Now doesn't mean you accept it, it means you've just got to work harder to find the incremental gains and execute good races and be on the top of your game.

"We know we need to improve in the second half of the year."

As Red Bull has hit the ceiling with the rigid suspension set-up Newey pioneered with the first ground effects car in 2022, it has run into another problem. 

Such a rigid set-up allows for a more stable aerodynamic platform and consistency with the balance of the car, thus extracting performance at a variety of different tracks. 

It does mean that the car is weak over bumps and kerbs found at street circuits, say Singapore and Monaco, but Red Bull was prepared to accept the limitations of one or two races a year for the greater good. 

But it now finds itself in a catch-22 situation with the philosophy. 

It cannot make fundamental architectural changes and basically rip up all the good work from the last two-and-a-half years to start again with the car, mainly because it doesn't have the wind-tunnel and CFD design time under the Aerodynamic Testing Restrictions (ATR) rules and it wouldn't be able to afford to do so under the cost cap. 

Other teams such as McLaren, Mercedes and Ferrari have been more fluid and manoeuvrable with their design philosophies and have been able to adapt them to the best design. 

In other words, these teams still have scope to grow through the rest of 2024 and into 2025, whilst Red Bull has plateaued and peaked. 

The major unknown factor

Most of Wolff's charm offensive to Verstappen has been based around the incoming power unit changes for 2026. 

Red Bull has launched its own in-house division - Red Bull Powertrains - and is receiving technical assistance from Ford, a company with no direct F1 experience in over 20 years, since it sold Jaguar to Red Bull.

But although good work has been done in getting a power unit on the test bench, this is a young company going up against engine behemoths such as Mercedes, Ferrari and Honda. 

It is a massive gamble for Red Bull, with Wolff keen to crowbar in the fact that Mercedes aced the turbo hybrid power units in 2014 to usher in the greatest period of dominance ever seen in F1. 

It is a strong selling point with Mercedes High-Performance Powertrains being tried and tested against the relative unknown of RBPT-Ford.

Verstappen, publicly at least, has given his backing to the project, but if he sees signs of a weak product, he won't stick around to drive it. 

As the best driver on the grid and the yardstick of 'man to beat', any team will bend over backwards to have him in their car and not a Red Bull. If that happens to be a Mercedes, Wolff can publicly display his shiny new all-time great to replace the one who left, as well as aiming a few digs at Horner's expense no doubt.

Does Hungary matter?

Part of what happened in Hungary does matter here as well. 

Verstappen was frustrated at the Hungaroring due to bad strategy calls and being forced off wide at Turn 1 on the opening lap by a sandwiched Norris and then the collision with Hamilton during his self-labelled "rescue" job. 

His critics can "fuck off" outburst and the general meltdown in the race will be blown over after his behind-the-scenes talks with Horner and the team. For engineer Gianpiero Lambiase, he is used to a pent-up Verstappen over the radio so it will be of little concern to him. 

But what does matter from Hungary are some of Verstappen's comments about the team not being on the same "wavelength."

He felt some within the team were not recognising the true threat the team is facing to its period of dominance and that not enough was being done about it. 

If that goes unaddressed and is allowed to fester throughout the rest of the season, Wolff's new year wish might just come true.