Toto Wolff Is Waiting on Max Verstappen
"Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links."
Mercedes AMG F1 still has an open seat for the 2025 season, more than three months after Lewis Hamilton announced his plans to leave the team for Ferrari. The team has plenty of available candidates for its job, but Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff seems adamant in new quotes that his eyes are set on one of the few drivers not known to be available in 2025: Max Verstappen.
Wolff had already been open about his interest in Verstappen's availability for 2025, and he doubled down on those comments in a conversation with RACER on Thursday. The Mercedes boss says the team is in "observation mode," waiting to "see where Max’s thinking goes" and following the performance of other drivers rather than jumping into a decision now and using the additional time to prepare for a 2025 with their new signee in place of Lewis Hamilton.
Verstappen is under contract until 2028, but is rumored to have an exit clause in his contract that would allow him to leave the team immediately if key personnel left the team. New rumors earlier this week suggested that Helmut Marko, a key figure in Red Bull's driver development program and a long-time ally of Verstappen, would be willing to leave the team to allow Verstappen to trigger this clause. That would make him immediately available to leave, and Mercedes would make for the most obvious landing spot if such a deal were to happen.
All of this once seemed implausible, but the shockwaves from Christian Horner's offseason scandal are still shaking the Red Bull team. The biggest news came when legendary designer and engineer Adrian Newey announced his plans to leave the program after nearly 20 years. Marko's departure would be a similar bombshell, but none would be bigger than Verstappen choosing to leave the team that has been so dominant since 2022.
If Verstappen were to make a switch to the Silver Arrows, Mercedes would replace the winningest driver in Formula 1 history with the third-winningest. Should Verstappen choose to stay, as he claimed he would just a month and a half ago, the team's choice is less clear. Outgoing Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz Jr. seems to be the only current senior driver in the field in contention for the open seat, but four-time champion Sebastian Vettel is open to a return and Mercedes-contracted Formula 2 rookie Kimi Antonelli could be an option, too.
Formula 1's 2024 season continues into December, so the program has plenty of time to make a decision. When it does, the rest of the 2025 grid should quickly fall into place.
You Might Also Like
