After endless speculations in the past few months, Max Verstappen recently made it clear that he will also drive for Red Bull Racing in the 2026 Formula 1 season. But why did the F1 world champion decide against Mercedes’ advances? Ex-pilot Juan Pablo Montoya has a very piquant suspicion.
Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff made no secret of the fact that he would like to have Max Verstappen under his wing in the past few months and years. The silver arrow boss is repeatedly flirting with a commitment of the Formula 1 world champion, who, according to rumors, is said to have thought intensively about a farewell to Red Bull Racing because the Austrian race stable has lost sport in terms of dominance.
Most recently, however, Verstappen made it clear that he would also drive for Red Bull in 2026, when the new technical regulations apply. He still had a lot up with the team, which enabled him four World Cup titles in the premier class of motorsport. But the former F1 driver Juan Pablo Montoya does not believe that the whereabouts were a pure heart decision.
“I don’t think he had a choice,” Montoya told “Coinpoker.com”. “If I had negotiated with Max last year when he won the World Cup, we would have cost me $ 100 million. This year he is sitting in a car that has problems. So his salary could then be more at $ 50 million,” calculated the World Cup in 2002 and 2003.
So possibly not offered the Dutchman to the Dutch, so that Verstappen had little incentive to change?
According to Montoya, Mercedes had the better cards
“Maybe Max thought that he would get $ 100 million a year if he changed,” said Montoya. But: “Whoever spoke to him had the upper hand because he knew that Max wanted more to them than that they wanted Max,” said the Colombian theory. “Toto Wolff could simply have half of the offer compared to what was necessary last year.”
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According to “Forbes”, Verstappen should collect up to 72 million euros a year at Red Bull Racing, other sources assume just over 50 million euros. The routine’s contract is dated until the end of 2028.