Eddie Irvine says Formula 1 wouldn\u2019t miss Max Verstappen if he followed through on retirement talk, arguing the sport has \u201cplenty\u201d of other talented drivers ready to step up.<\/p>\n
Questions about how long Verstappen will remain in the sport have increased recently. The Dutchman has yet to address comments he made in Japan after another disappointing result.<\/p>\n
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Verstappen has called Red Bull\u2019s car \u201cundriveable,\u201d having qualified outside the top 10 and finished eighth in Suzuka. Alongside his issues with the new power unit regulations, Verstappen admitted after qualifying that he needs time to \u201cfigure out\u201d his future.<\/p>\n
Eddie Irvine thinks Max Verstappen has \u00a343.5m \u2018good reasons\u2019 to stay in Formula 1<\/p>\n
After the Japanese Grand Prix, Verstappen<\/a> stood by his talk of leaving F1 at the end of 2026, saying he had to decide \u201cis it worth it?\u201d to stick around. While Red Bull have him signed through 2028, there are several release clauses in his deal.<\/p>\n Having seen how quickly things can change in F1, Eddie Irvine understands why Verstappen\u2019s unhappy \u2013 going from dominating five straight championships to falling behind Alpine\u2019s Pierre Gasly is a big shift. But Irvine also feels that while Verstappen brings a lot of star power, the sport isn\u2019t short on talent and money shouldn\u2019t be a problem for him anyway.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n \u201cF1 doesn\u2019t need Max,\u201d Irvine told Gazzetta dello Sport<\/a>. \u201cThere are plenty of talented drivers. It\u2019s tough for him to find himself in the middle of the pack. But considering his salary, there are over \u20ac50 million (\u00a343.5m) in good reasons to stay.\u201d<\/p>\n Verstappen was F1\u2019s highest-paid driver in 2025 at $76m (\u00a357.5m) before bonuses after Red Bull<\/a> raised his base pay from $60m (\u00a345.5m). However, with McLaren\u2019s Lando Norris<\/a> taking the 2025 title, Verstappen\u2019s bonuses dropped to $11m (\u00a38.5m).<\/p>\n If he were to retire at the end of 2026, money wouldn\u2019t be a concern for Verstappen either way \u2013 Red Bull is even said to be willing to pay him \u00a360m not to race in 2027 if they believe it might bring him back motivated for a return in 2028.<\/p>\n It appears that there is no urgent need for Verstappen to make any decisions about his future right away either. If he is outside of the top two by August during the summer break, he will have until October use his release clause \u2014 which now looks more likely than ever this year.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Read more:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eddie Irvine says Formula 1 wouldn\u2019t miss Max Verstappen if he followed through on retirement talk, arguing the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":588288,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,172289,578,576,577,1885,1882,82,224382],"class_list":{"0":"post-588287","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-formula-1","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-eddie-irvine","11":"tag-f1","12":"tag-formula-1","13":"tag-formula1","14":"tag-max-verstappen","15":"tag-red-bull","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-talented-drivers"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=588287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588287\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/588288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=588287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=588287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=588287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}