Max Verstappen to Mercedes rumours trigger worst-case scenario Red Bull fears
Red Bull are “going to finish last” if Max Verstappen leaves the team for Mercedes for the F1 2026 season.
That is the claim of Ted Kravitz, the Sky F1 reporter, who fears that the Austrian Grand Prix offered a worrying glimpse into life without the reigning four-time World Champion.
Sky F1’s Ted Kravitz: Red Bull ‘going to finish last’ without Max VerstappenDespite being officially under contract with Red Bull until the end of the 2028 season, Verstappen has been heavily linked with a move away from the team at the end of this year.
Christian Horner, the Red Bull team principal, confirmed to media including PlanetF1.com last year that Verstappen’s contract contains a “performance element” that would theoretically allow him to leave before 2028 if the team fails to provide a competitive car.
It is believed that Verstappen will be free to activate an exit clause if he is lower than fourth in the Drivers’ standings after next month’s Hungarian Grand Prix, the final race before F1’s summer break.
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Verstappen currently occupies third in the championship with a nine-point lead over Russell. Charles Leclerc, the Ferrari driver, sits 36 points adrift of the Red Bull man in fifth.
A report from Italy on Wednesday claimed that Verstappen is close to agreeing a move to Mercedes for next season after ‘concrete’ talks between the two parties.
It came just days after current incumbent George Russell, whose contract expires at the end of this season, revealed that negotiations to take Verstappen to Mercedes for F1 2026 are “ongoing.”
Toto Wolff, the Mercedes team boss, did not deny that talks with Verstappen are taking place when asked by media including PlanetF1.com in Austria.
Verstappen suffered his first retirement of the F1 2025 season at Red Bull’s home race last weekend when he collided with Russell’s team-mate, Andrea Kimi Antonelli, on the opening lap.
The sister Red Bull of Yuki Tsunoda was classified last of the 16 finishers in Spielberg, with the Japanese racer lapped twice by winner Lando Norris.
Tsunoda is Verstappen’s third team-mate in the space of 12 months with Sergio Perez and Liam Lawson both replaced by Red Bull since the end of last season.
Appearing on Sky F1’s coverage of the Austrian Grand Prix, Kravitz claimed that dark days await for Red Bull if Verstappen does depart, describing the RB21 car “undriveable” for other drivers.
He said: “What happens when Max Verstappen is bundled out of the race by Kimi Antonelli at the start?
“Well, they have nobody, it seems, in the other car.
“This second Red Bull is near undriveable. It’s identical to the other Red Bull, but no one can drive it.
“So it’s not Yuki Tsunoda’s fault; it wasn’t Liam Lawson’s fault; it wasn’t Sergio Perez’s fault; it wasn’t Daniel Ricciardo’s fault.
“It’s the car. It’s this car that’s set up and, built the way it is, it’s only driveable by one person now.
“That’s OK, I guess, if that one person is Max Verstappen. And he’s so good he’s going to try and get a fifth World Championship in a row having got four in a row with the direction these cars are taking.
“But if Max Verstappen isn’t driving your car because he goes out at the beginning or because he’s not in the team anymore, which a lot has been spoken about that, then what are you left with?
“You’re left with an undriveable car that nobody can drive or score any points.
“Yuki Tsunoda was last [in Austria] and he got a 10-second penalty for bumping into Franco Colapinto, which is probably why he was last.
“So it’s not the drivers; it’s the car.”
More on Max Verstappen and Red Bull Racing from PlanetF1.comTsunoda has found himself under mounting pressure after finishing no higher than 12th across the last four races, with the 25-year-old limited to just seven points since he was promoted to Red Bull Racing ahead of the Japanese Grand Prix.
The Austrian GP also saw Lawson collect the best result of his career with an assured sixth place for the Racing Bulls junior team.
It came after Verstappen himself claimed that Lawson would “go faster” in the Racing Bulls car at the height of his struggles with the RB21 in China.
Kravitz argued that it would be pointless for Red Bull to drop Tsunoda, calling for the team to produce a more benign and “bespoke” car for Verstappen’s team-mates going forward.
He said: “There’s no point binning off Yuki Tsunoda now because it’s not his fault.
“Just as I think we can all say now that it wasn’t Liam Lawson’s fault, it wasn’t Sergio Perez’s fault and to them we owe an apology, because now I think it’s clear that it wasn’t ever the drivers.
“But when you look at a race like that – and Max would have been able to put it potentially on the third row had he not had the problem in qualifying and would have raced to trouble the Ferraris and maybe get close to the McLarens – then you know that it’s not the drivers, it’s the car.
“Can they just take a Racing Bulls and repaint it and rebadge it? No, you have to build your own car.
“But Red Bull could take some cues from the Racing Bulls and just build a bespoke car, I guess, for the second half of the garage.
“Do they have the resource to do that? Probably not.
“Liam Lawson, who was dumped after two races from this team, finished sixth. And Isack Hadjar, had he not had a bad deal with the shuffling of the pack early on, would have been in the points.
“So they have to think of something because if Max does leave this team then they’re going to finish last.”
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