Max Verstappen

"Honda should have secured coverage for part of Max's engagement, confirming Honda's increasing involvement in the Red Bull project, and this has most likely allowed Verstappen to exceed the threshold of 40 million € per season."

That's getting up there with Mercedes and Ferrari.

 

No titles yet.............amazing. Yes he is superbly talented. Not sure that is a rational number. OF course not my funding to spend lol

 

Max Verstappen's bumper Red Bull contract extension has some obvious ramifications on the Formula One grid for what still could be a fascinating year in terms of potential driver moves.

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Which F1 drivers are entering a contract year in 2020?
For Red Bull and Honda, it is a huge win. It takes Verstappen off the market at a time whispers of a move to Mercedes were starting to grow, but more importantly gives a ringing endorsement of Red Bull's fledgling partnership with Honda. Immediately after the extension was confirmed, Verstappen tweeted his desire to win a championship with the team which has supported him since the start of his F1 career.

The Red Bull-Honda partnership is currently contracted to run until the end of 2021, so Verstappen's decision to commit beyond that shows a great deal of faith in the success of the project over the next two seasons. Verstappen claimed three victories with Honda power in 2019, and there is a strong feeling it can build on that success in the coming year, while the complete overhaul of F1's regulations in 2021 has Red Bull dreaming about reasserting itself as the grid's dominant force once again.

The extension means the grid's brightest two stars of the future, Verstappen and Ferrari's Charles Leclerc, are tied down at their current teams for the foreseeable future.

The driver market attention now shifts to the two most successful drivers of the modern era.

Happy birthday, Lewis
Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton are the biggest F1 names out of a contract at the end of 2020. Mark Thompson/Getty Images
Verstappen's deal was confirmed on Lewis Hamilton's 35th birthday and it is something of a gift to the six-time world champion, as it will bolster his position while discussing his future with Mercedes this year, the final one of his existing deal. In the final weeks of the 2019 season, Hamilton spoke openly about the prospect of a blockbuster switch to Ferrari after meetings with company chairman John Elkann.

The Hamilton-Ferrari link is not a new one, but Hamilton had never spoken so candidly about the possibility. The idea of driving for Ferrari is a tantalising one for any driver, but the added prospect of ending the Italian team's championship drought and, assuming he wins a seventh title before leaving Mercedes, breaking Michael Schumacher's record in a red car must only add to the appeal of a switch in the final days of his career.

Ferrari has since called the speculation which followed Hamilton's meetings with Elkann "totally premature," but the mere suggestion of a move leaves Hamilton in a very strong position in his negotiations. It was enough to unsettle the bosses at Red Bull -- Helmut Marko told Auto Motor und Sport after Verstappen's deal was announced he had been concerned about the prospect of the Dutchman ending up at Mercedes.

With Verstappen off the market, Mercedes can no longer use the prospect of signing the Dutchman as leverage. The fact Mercedes has kept Valtteri Bottas on a succession of one-year extensions proves it is not convinced of him as a long-term option and it is impossible to imagine the team entering 2021 with the Finn as its lead driver. Were Hamilton to leave, there are no alternatives who match Verstappen's calibre, so Tuesday's announcement has only raised the prospect of Mercedes getting a deal done with their man.

Verstappen's former teammate Daniel Ricciardo seems the next best available option to replace Hamilton, but he spent 2019 languishing in the midfield after his move to Renault. Ricciardo still has credit in the bank from his strong five-year stint with Red Bull, where he was a proven race winner who established a reputation as one of the grid's brightest talents. He will hope the gloss of those days has not worn off completely when he is talking to other top teams this year.

Ricciardo is likely to have one eye on the fortunes of another former teammate this year, Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel. Like Hamilton, Vettel is entering the final year of his deal, but his future looks as uncertain as ever. The length of Leclerc's deal suggests the younger driver is now viewed as the long-term future of the Italian team, and Vettel's error-strewn recent past has left him on the ropes going into the 2020 season.


For Ferrari, things haven't changed a great deal. If it does decide to move on from Vettel, it has Ricciardo as a quick and reliable fallback option if Hamilton decides to stay with Mercedes -- handily, Ricciardo speaks fluent Italian and could be expected to quickly adapt to life back at the front end of the grid. While Ferrari does have still-unproven Mick Schumacher waiting in the wings, it is highly unlikely the Italian team would risk dropping him in the deep end for 2021 even if he won this year's Formula 2 championship.

A lot, of course, rests on the state of Leclerc's tense relationship with Vettel by the end of 2020. Even if the threat of Hamilton and Ricciardo being on the market triggers a turnaround in Vettel's form, the team might see it as counterproductive to continue with that pairing if the two continue to clash on track this season, especially if the team feels it is well-placed to win a championship in 2021.

Does anyone else benefit?
There are no obvious ramifications on other drivers, beyond Verstappen's deal reducing the chances of a crazy series of moves with implications across the grid.

Verstappen's deal makes him the de facto team leader at Red Bull (if he wasn't already) and the team's operation is likely to continue to be shaped around him. Bad news, then, for teammate Alexander Albon? Not really, as Albon has bigger things to worry about in 2020, like securing a long-term stay of his own at the team. To do so, he must close the gap to Verstappen on track to ensure he is not looking over his shoulder at Toro Rosso's Pierre Gasly come the summer break.

With Ferrari and Red Bull both committing to their budding young stars, highly rated Mercedes junior George Russell might feel even better about his chances of an elevation from Williams to Mercedes for 2021. A positive for Russell, who won the 2018 Formula 2 championship, is his future is not reliant on Hamilton's next move -- Bottas has done little to suggest he can win a championship at Mercedes and is on another one-year deal with the German manufacturer, so Russell looks like a very strong candidate to be driving a silver car whatever happens over the next 12 months.

 

Considering he was around a second a lap faster than either of his teammates, and seemingly no driver around/available to match/beat that....yes 40 million is worth it to keep him on. Quite simply put, if Red Bull Consisted of Gasly/Albon there is a strong argument that Red Bull would have finished behind at least 1 Mclaren...

 

Happy for him, well deserved.

 

Po

Possibly but remember the No 1 gets the No1 car, nothing has changed it that department for decades. If Albon was no 1 ?
Best
tony

 

It's an awful lot of money, but Red Bull still has not a winning car neither a replacement driver. And Verstappen knows it.

 

https://www.planetf1.com/news/salo-verstappen-contract-doesnt-change-anything/

 

"Leverage"

 

Brundle assess Max move - https://www.planetf1.com/news/brundle-expected-leclerc-or-verstappen-to-join-mercedes/

 

Ya, it’s simple Brundle...Red Bull money crystallized before the new year and Mercedes couldn’t/wouldn’t match the offer!

 

Or no seat at Mercedes on the horizon..................

 

I don't think Mercedes wanted Verstappen anyway.

 

Not welcome at Ferrari it appears given recent press. He had no real choices possibly.
Honda has improved of course.

 

Honda isn't commited to F1 beyond 2021. Red Bull must know something.
Anyway, the 3 top drivers of the moment (Hamilton, Leclerc and Verstappen) are in the 3 top teams.
It all makes sense.

 

My read is in hindsight we should not be surprised. Hamilton is going for the record over the next 2-3 seasons. Ferrari wants a #1 in LeClerc and RedBull needs their next Champion in Verstappen. All have budgets to pay big bucks for their star. Unless Vettel shows up this season he is going to have a massive pay cut in 2021 somewhere or retirement. Ricciardo I'm interested in....big salary at Renault but could be a bargain at one of these teams as Hamilton eventually retires or LeClerc/Verstappen does not work out...

 

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You can make statistics say whatever you want...For instance (For instance...) let's look at the results obtained by each of these drivers (= Schumacher, Hamilton, Vettel) after 102 Grand Prix disputed, in terms of Wins and Championships, then Max record will look mediocre at best, as seven wins in 102 Grand Prix is nothing remarkable at all: and Jackie Stewart had 27 in 99 Grand Prix...Fangio, an old man compared to Max's age, had 25 in 51 races! Alain Prost had 51 in 199 races.

Like I said, you can make statistics say whatever you want. Change your angle of approach, and they say Something completly different. In fact, they prove not much.

Rgds

 

Honda pays a large part of Max's salary, until 2023. Unless they're prepared to pay 2 years whilst not affiliated with the team (or F1 for that matter), it's very likely they'll stay on for a while yet.

 

make that no Mercedes team on the horizon a possibility.

 

I wouldn't be very suprised. For Mercedes, and from an investment point of view, F1 doesn't make much sense now: they have won all the championships since 2014, without even having been threatened. The public is rather bored, making the returns less and less tangible for their image. Might be time to shift to other pastures.

Rgds

 

That is what I was thinking. There have been rumors for a while that they will just supply engines after 2020. A lot of the signs are there and Toto has not directly denied the rumors.

 

Ex-Red Bull driver, Robert Doornbos, has said it was “surprising” to see Max Verstappen sign a new, long contract with the team.

Verstappen has agreed a new three-year contract extension with Red Bull which will now expire at the end of the 2023 season.

The Dutchman’s previous contract was due to expire following the conclusion of the 2020 campaign and Doornbos was surprised to see his fellow compatriot commit to them again for so long.

“I raced for Red Bull myself, so I still have sources there,” Doorbos is quoted as having told Dutch broadcaster NPO 1.

“I knew that something was going on, but that he would be extending for such a long term, that is surprising in Formula 1.

“In the sport, they never dare to make a commitment to a driver for so long unless they have already won a number of world titles.

“I think it’s a bit of loyalty and a bit of certainty, as after this year a lot will change in Formula 1. But I think 2020 is his best chance to go for a championship.”

Verstappen’s new contract is said to be worth in the region of £12million a year, which reportedly puts him third on the highest-earning driver list behind Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel.

Verstappen is not the only big name to commit his long-term future to his current employers so early on. Charles Leclerc has signed a new deal with Ferrari that will run until the end of the 2024 season.

https://www.planetf1.com/news/doornbos-surprised-by-verstappens-long-term-deal/

 

For Mercedes, there is only one goal left before they retire: obtain a 7th World Constructors Championship, to beat Ferrari's record of 6 consecutive titles.
If they achieve that, it would probably be unassailable.

Schumacher's 91 wins and 7 WDCs record is for Hamilton to beat, but in any case, both accumulated their tally with at least 2 teams, so it's less relevent to Mercedes..

 

Funny, he says this AFTER both Ferrari and Red Bull sign long term commitments to drivers who have not won any world titles.