Insiders think Verstappen will ‘100pc’ stay at Red Bull

May 22 (GMM) Two Formula 1 insiders think the risk that Red Bull might lose Max Verstappen to a rival team next year has faded.

Team advisor – and Verstappen’s long-time mentor – Dr Helmut Marko admitted after the quadruple world champion’s win from pole at Imola that it had been an “important” result.

Felix Gorner, an experienced F1 reporter for German broadcaster RTL, concluded in his latest column for sport.de: “Max Verstappen will 100 percent drive for Red Bull next year.

“He has now been shown that he can fight with the two McLaren drivers,” he added.

Not only have rumours Verstappen might trigger a performance-related exit clause during the summer break subsided, so too has the talk that team boss Christian Horner’s job may be on the line.

“I don’t know who started that nonsense,” Marko told Osterreich newspaper. “But everything has changed now anyway.”

Gorner agrees: “Verstappen saved Christian Horner’s job. He was under a lot of pressure. Does the update work? It works.

“And now Horner can sleep soundly again as the head of Red Bull.”

Meanwhile, former F1 driver and Verstappen’s fellow Dutchman Christijan Albers also thinks no team – neither Mercedes nor Aston Martin – can offer the 27-year-old the conditions he currently has at Red Bull.

For instance, Verstappen went straight from Miami to a high-speed test in a GT3 car at the treacherous Nordschleife. “Max is a thoroughbred racing driver who enjoys getting into a GT car and racing, even on Formula 1-free weekends,” Marko said.

“It builds him up, so we will never forbid him from doing that.”

Verstappen and Lance Stroll, meanwhile, were the only race drivers absent on Wednesday from a private Monaco screening of the new Brad Pitt movie ‘F1’. At the time it was happening, the Red Bull driver was live streaming from his nearby apartment as ‘Franz Hermann69’ on his racing sim.

Albers commented to De Telegraaf: “There is no team where Max could be given as much freedom as he has at Red Bull. Basically, he has carte blanche. Everyone adores him.

“He is not under pressure from the second driver, because he is always faster than everyone else. It is just very calm for him at Red Bull,” the former Minardi driver added.

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