Conjecture has been rife over the future of Max Verstappen and whether he might take a sabbatical from Formula 1 next season or else quit the sport altogether amid his dislike for the current regulations.
Rumours of a Verstappen exit from Red Bull Racing are nothing new. Last season, he was linked to a cross-grid switch to Mercedes as he had been the year before.
In 2025, I was fortunate enough to spend the season behind the scenes with the team to find a Verstappen wholly different to how he is occasionally publicly received.
Let’s start with his future. While admittedly not privy to his negotiations it was plain to see his loyalty to the team. Before founder Dietrich Mateschitz’s death, he told the Austrian billionaire his ambition was to see out his career with Red Bull – that remains the ideal ambition.
Verstappen wants to spend his career driving for Red Bull (Photo: Getty)In a world as cut-throat as Formula 1, Verstappen has stayed remarkably loyal, all he asks is for the car to fight at the front-end of a race and a championship. As a result and with the regulations shifting to be more aligned to what he wants, I fully expect him to remain next season.
There is a fear, though, within the four walls of the team of losing their star driver. Mark Mateschitz, the founder’s son, said that would be the worst thing to ever happen to the team.
It is clear Red Bull will do everything to keep Verstappen there – money for a privately owned company is no object – and yet such are the brilliance of the 2,000 people around him, they can clearly still thrive should a time come when the best driver on the grid is no longer there.
Verstappen is clearly the conduit for their collective brilliance but that underplays the hundreds working tirelessly to get him on the grid each race weekend, as for Canada in the coming days.
And what of Verstappen the human being? In Britain, he can over be portrayed as overly aggressive on and off the track, that perception partially explained by the fact he has been the opponent to largely British rivals such as Lewis Hamilton, Lando Norris and George Russell.
Verstappen’s (right) sometimes testy relationship with Lewis Hamilton has coloured his reputation in the UK (Photo: Getty)The Verstappen I found was far different, a litany of moments littered across the course of the season highlighting that from talking about the joys of nappy changing while driving me around the Monaco street circuit to being accosted by an elderly man and taking great joy in comparing the kart wheeling talents of his granddaughter and Verstappen’s step daughter.
It is telling that Jos Verstappen, Max’s father, says the thing he is proudest of are not the four world titles and countless wins but his son as a human being.
I often think the truest test of a driver is by asking the mechanics around him. Verstappen’s would do anything for him and talk of his kindness and humour, and an ability when he takes them out for pizza and beers to act like one of the boys.
Then there is the in-car brilliance. There were too many moments last season to list of how he got a far from competitive car early on to race wins that wouldn’t have been possible for lesser mortals.
One only had to look at the faces of Christian Horner and Pierre Wache following that pole lap in Suzuka a year ago, which Horner called, “one of the best qualifying laps ever”, half a second quicker than he had been in the previous session. Or there was the drive from the back of the grid to the podium in Brazil. The list goes on.
Verstappen’s crew speak very highly of him (Photo: AP)Trying to unpick the brilliance was a season-long target, and the answer is multi-faceted. His race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase described it as “an innate feeling for the connection between himself, the car and the road”, while chief engineer Paul Monaghan said one secret was in the way he galvanised those around him to give the sense that “we’re all in this together”.
What’s remarkable is how effortless he makes it look when it’s clearly not and even his peers are in awe of his car-handling skills, so too the manner in which he is switched on and at full tilt from lap one of a session.
Jos must take credit for how he nurtured an F1 star of the future through their karting days but also credits Max for finding his own pathway through sim racing, which remains a big part of his life. Team principal Laurent Mekies likes to say it’s not uncommon to ring Verstappen the day after a grand prix to find him sim racing at home.
That sim expertise adds another string to his bow, argues Jos. “In the sim, it’s not about feeling, it’s about everything you see with your eyes,” he explains. “And because he does it that much, that in combination with talent and feeling, that makes him really good.”
There is also the unseen technical brilliance, again coaxed by learning from his father in those karting days. He has a far greater engineer’s brain that many would think, and his race engineers revel in his “Dutch directness” as one described it to me. His feedback over the team radio can still be fractious at times but every nugget is hugely valuable to the 2,000 around him.
And ominously for his rivals, all at the team argue he’s still reached his peak.
Inside Red Bull Racing: A Season with F1’s Most Thrilling Team by Matt Majendie, published by Blink Publishing, is out now
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