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Max Verstappen has torpedoed any chance of forming a combustible partnership with George Russell at Mercedes next season, by claiming that he wants to spend the rest of his career at Red Bull.
‘That’s what I said in 2021 and that’s still the target – I’m still fully committed to the team,’ he declared in an exclusive interview with Mail Sport ahead of the British Grand Prix, where he will be cast in his annual role as pantomime villain.
Speculation has raged for months that the quadruple world champion might jump ship to Mercedes, a move that would most likely have resulted in him partnering the Silver Arrows’ current No 1 Russell, the Englishman he punted off in Spain last month, in a flash of anger.
The two very different characters share only a highly developed competitive zeal, and it would have been pure theatre to see them share machinery. Not next year. Russell will sign a new deal at Mercedes, 95 per cent for certain, and as Verstappen indicated last night, he does not seek pastures new. Not for 2026, at least.
To move now would be madness. New regulations come in next year and there is no telling which team will gain the edge. Why make yourself hostage to fortune rather than wait and see at the home where your genius has been nurtured since you were a kid?
In a wide-ranging interview, he considers his uncompromising driving style, what he thinks of others’ estimation of his place in the list of motor racing greats, and the influence of his father Jos.
Max Verstappen reveals exclusively to Mail Sport that he is staying at Red Bull - after reports he was in talks to join Mercedes
Verstappen would have been partnered with George Russell (right) at Mercedes, after a turbulent few weeks for their relationship
But the Dutchman insists all is not what it seems in his dealings with the British driver
But first, to close down the Russell/Mercedes talk, he reveals that he has not even considered whether he and George would work in tandem.
‘I can’t do anything about all the stories that are written up,’ said Verstappen. ‘I also don’t pay attention to it. It has never crossed my mind to take a year out. Driving anywhere else or with anyone else is not even on my mind. This scenario does not exist in my head.’
Relations with Russell? ‘We get on all right. We have our moments on the track but it’s all good. We speak. We just leave that behind, at least from my side. You just continue racing. I’m not someone who holds a grudge.’
We find Verstappen in good and open form. He has a basic Dutch decency. That might sound like a backhanded compliment. It is not. There is no backhand in it. He is a man without veneer.
Just before we speak, he spent an hour with Christian Horner on the bottom floor of Red Bull’s hospitality area – the Energy Station – near to the turnstiles at the paddock entrance at Silverstone. They have plenty to discuss. The season has been tricky, the old dominance swept away over the last couple of years, but talks were positive.
Horner leaves and Max and I go upstairs to chat at a quiet table away from team personnel eating their dinners.
On the stairs, he warms up by saying he is happy to have beaten a stomach bug that kept him away from Red Bull’s Clay Day shooting in Oxfordshire the day before, an event from which I escaped with no more than a bruised shoulder. ‘I hear you are a bad shot,’ said Verstappen, jokingly. ‘I heard it from a very good source.’ A harsh verdict.
Verstappen has just become a father, baby Lily having been born two months ago to his partner Kelly Piquet, daughter of triple world champion Nelson. Private by nature in a public job, he says he counts himself ‘lucky’ that the newborn is sleeping well.
Verstappen has recently become a father, having had a daughter two months ago with his partner Kelly Piquet
Kelly (left) is the daughter of three-time F1 world champion Nelson Piquet (right, pictured with Niki Lauda)
Just before we speak, Verstappen has spent an hour with his boss, Christian Horner
I ask how he wants to be remembered when he retires, possibly in 2028 when his contract is due to end, or later if he decides to race on in Formula One.
‘I’ve achieved everything I’ve wanted to achieve already in racing and Formula One,’ added Verstappen, 27. ‘Do I want to win even more? For sure. Am I happy with how this season is going? No, but sometimes that is not in your control.
‘People make up their minds about what they think (of me). If that’s positive or negative, for me that doesn’t matter. I got into Formula One wanting to perform for myself and the people around me, not to win seven or eight titles. It doesn’t matter how you’re remembered, at least not in my case.
'Racing beyond 2028, I don’t know. It depends how these new cars will be, and naturally how competitive you are. But in general it’s about the cars, how they feel, are they fun?
‘But 24 races and having GT3 racing going on and the sim team over and above that as I do is a lot. I have a lot of passions outside Formula One. If I said today “I stop”, I would have a lot of stuff going on beyond my family.’
He will be joined at Silverstone by his father Jos, a former racing driver, his chief adviser from the day they set out in karts from a Belgian industrial estate in Maasbracht, half an hour’s drive from Maastricht.
Jos the Boss, who raced with a young Michael Schumacher at Benetton, is now rallying and not around the F1 paddock so much these days, his boy being given his head.
‘We also don’t see each other that much,’ said Verstappen Jr. ‘We speak on the phone but whenever you can you catch up. It is a very strong relationship.
Jos Verstappen (right) has been a huge influence on his son - even if they do not always see eye to eye
Jos (top) was a Benetton team-mate of Michael Schumacher (bottom) and Britain's Johnny Herbert (right)
Verstappen also competes in 12-hour endurance races on virtual racing simulators, and has been part of Team Redline since 2015
‘We don’t always see things the same way and that’s absolutely fine, but I always appreciate his input. My dad always wants the best for me. I know that always deep in my heart. I appreciate that always.
‘Dutch people in general can be quite straight forward so sometimes if he says something it can be like “ooh”. But it works for me and our relationship as well.’
Verstappen, the vanquisher of home hero Lewis Hamilton in 2021 after colliding with him here that year, is prepared for boos. He stays at his motorhome on Silverstone Farm. Any trouble from disgruntled locals, I wonder?
‘Nothing aggressive,’ he says, adding with a smile: ‘Luckily.
'Luckily for them.’
