Jun.30 (GMM) Max Verstappen and George Russell’s respective futures will be no clearer at the British GP.
“No – nothing,” Toto Wolff insisted on Sunday when asked if Mercedes fans can expect to hear any 2026 driver plans this weekend at Silverstone.
Red Bull’s home race in Austria was characterised by intensified speculation that talks between Verstappen and Wolff had ramped up.
Dr Helmut Marko departed the Red Bull Ring repeating his usual mantra.
“There is a contract until 2028,” the team advisor and Verstappen mentor insisted. “It has exit clauses that are performance related.
“As things stand, there is no reason to doubt that the contract will be fulfilled.”
Indeed, while Verstappen is just P3 in the drivers’ title, it is believed he could even fall behind Mercedes’ Russell at P4 and still be locked into his existing contract.
Arguably a more pertinent issue for Red Bull is that all of Verstappen’s very recent teammates – Sergio Perez, Liam Lawson, and now the increasingly hapless Yuki Tsunoda – have been completely unable to contribute to the team’s constructors’ championship effort.
Tsunoda, who could join Honda in departing the entire Red Bull family at the end of the year, left the paddock on Sunday declaring: “I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong.”
Marko explained: “Yuki is lacking confidence at the moment. Then he attempts an overtaking maneuver and collides with his opponent.
“We need to think about how to stabilise him, but we don’t have much time for that. The next race is in just a week.”
Lawson was ousted from the same seat after just two races this year, but is now starting to deliver at the junior outfit Racing Bulls. Might the New Zealander be given another try in the 2025 Red Bull?
“A driver change doesn’t make sense anymore,” Marko insisted, adding that he still thinks it was the right decision to replace Lawson with Tsunoda.
“Absolutely, because Lawson was also completely exhausted,” said the Austrian. “He needed a few races to recover, now he has defended a sixth place brilliantly against Fernando Alonso with a one stopper. I think he would not have stayed on his feet next to Max either.”
As for Tsunoda, Marko said the team will support the Japanese to recover.
“He also had that dangerous crash in Imola,” the 82-year-old reminded. “It is now a sum of negative events, but the speed is there. We see that in the practice sessions too, but when the pressure is on, that changes.”
Many think Red Bull is now reaping the downside of aggressively chasing Verstappen’s preferred direction of car development – resulting in a car that is near impossible for any other driver to handle.
Team boss Christian Horner disagrees, insisting that while the 2025 Red Bull is “difficult, it’s not that difficult”.
“The car has gone in a certain direction in recent years,” he acknowledged, “but now we have to try to rebuild Yuki’s confidence for Silverstone.
“We’re going to see how we can support him, but there is a big difference between the two cars. The questions you’re asking me, we’re also asking ourselves internally.”
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