Former F1 driver Martin Brundle has defended Max Verstappen sticking with Red Bull next season, describing it as “absolutely” the right call whilst criticising the “clickbait” rumours.\u00a0<\/p>\n
On media day ahead of the Hungarian Grand Prix, the four-time world champion confirmed he will race for Red Bull next season.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Dutchman had been heavily linked to Mercedes; however, a contract exit clause for the summer has become void, due to Verstappen not being able to enter the break any lower than third in the standings.<\/p>\n
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff and George Russell revealed talks with Verstappen had taken place, whilst it was rumoured that the Red Bull star met Wolff in Sardinia.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Verstappen’s and Wolff’s yachts were spotted ahead of the Belgian GP docked alongside each other in Sardinia, leading to rumours of a meeting.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The rumour was quickly deemed to be clickbait, with Brundle noting that if the duo wanted to meet it could have easily happened in Monaco \u2013 where both individuals live.<\/p>\n
Asked if Verstappen sticking with Red Bull for 2026 is the right call, Brundle told Sky F1: “Absolutely. Red Bull were never going to play the card with Christian Horner without ensuring that it meant Max was going to stay.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“So that was as clear as day. Max has chosen, on a number of occasions not to confirm anything where he’s going. Of course, the whole nonsense about yachts and holidays, they all live in Monaco.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“They only need to cross the street if they want to have a chat about a contract. So that all got brewed up on the internet and the clickbait. But I think what Max will do now is take a view, see what happens.”<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tVerstappen’s 2027 options<\/p>\n
Whilst Verstappen will continue with Red Bull next season, there remains significant uncertainty on what will happen for 2027.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Next year represents the first of the new power unit regulations, with several drivers set to find themselves with an expired contract at the end of 2026.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As a result, Verstappen will likely have all the big teams, except McLaren, to choose from for a move away from Red Bull, should the Austrian outfit struggle as a powertrain supplier.<\/p>\n
“The crystal ball has never been more opaque for a Formula 1 driver because of the changes with the chassis and the power unit for 2026. Who’s going to get it right?” asked Brundle.<\/p>\n
“He knows that there will be a Ferrari seat, at least a Mercedes seat, a Red Bull seat, and probably an Aston Martin seat available to him for ’27.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former F1 driver Martin Brundle has defended Max Verstappen sticking with Red Bull next season, describing it as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58708,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,827,830,828,831,829,826,813,823,825,806,805,824,803,804,822,85],"class_list":["post-61897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-daniel-ricciardo","tag-f1-calendar","tag-f1-live","tag-f1-results","tag-f1-standings","tag-ferrari","tag-formula-1","tag-lewis-hamilton","tag-max-verstappen","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motorsport","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-racing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61897"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61897\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}