‘Nothing wrong with that’ – Verstappen confirms ‘serious’ talks with Mercedes and McLaren

Max Verstappen has confirmed that he was in talks with McLaren about a move to Woking, talks that he took “seriously”, but in the end he decided to continue with Red Bull.

Verstappen has been at the epicentre of Formula 1’s drivers’ market for the past few seasons, initially linked to Mercedes before McLaren entered the fray earlier this year.

Max Verstappen: There’s nothing wrong with that

Multiple paddock sources told PlanetF1.com earlier this season that Verstappen and McLaren were in the closing stages of a lengthy negotiation for the Dutch driver to switch from Red Bull to McLaren.

Verstappen refused to shut down the rumours when he was questioned about the speculation during the British Grand Prix.

“I’m not going to get involved in that,” he told PlanetF1.com and other accredited media.

“I’ve already said what I wanted to say. If something new happens or if something changes, you’ll hear it from me and not through the grapevine or from someone else writing about it, right?”

However, after months of speculation, Red Bull announced on the eve of the Dutch Grand Prix that Verstappen would continue his journey with the team into the 2030 season.

Verstappen broke his silence over his reported talks with Mercedes in 2025 and with McLaren in 2026 in an interview with BBC Sport.

“Of course, any kind of chat you take seriously,” he said. “They’re all very respectful chats. There’s nothing wrong with that.

“I felt that staying was, for me, the right choice. You have to follow your heart.

“I could have run away very early on in my Red Bull career and gone somewhere else to try and win. If you have a little bit of patience, you do end up winning.

“I feel like that’s my approach now as well.”

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Red Bull has endured a difficult start to Formula 1’s new regulatory cycle, with the Milton Keynes squad yet to win a Grand Prix.

Although Verstappen has stood on the podium on four occasions, he trails championship leader Kimi Antonelli by 140 points with 10 race weekends remaining.

Despite the team’s results, the 28-year-old says it always felt right to remain with Red Bull.

“It comes down to also feeling well within a team. This is like a second family to me,” he said.

“The belief that you can turn things around, you can build towards hopefully a better future with other people, new people.

“And at the end of the day, it’s not only Formula 1 for me. There are a lot of things that I’m doing next year that Red Bull is involved in as well.

“I feel good here. So this, for me, is the right place to be.”

He added: “I always said to them: ‘Don’t stress about it, just work on the car.’ Because the faster the car goes, the easier the decision is anyway.

“I can understand, of course, maybe sometimes they were a little bit worried. But at the same time, for me, I was just worried about here, what was going on.

“At the same time, I was very busy with my stuff also outside of Formula 1. So I never really spent a lot of time talking or doing different things or trying to go somewhere else.”

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