A retirement was on the table before the extension
Fifty-fifty. That is how Max Verstappen described the decision, and the other half of it was not McLaren.
Speaking to German newspaper Bild on Monday, the Dutchman revealed what he kept quiet when he signed. Before extending with Red Bull through 2030, he seriously weighed an option almost nobody saw coming: walking away.
“You have to take every conversation with another team seriously,” he said, confirming talks with McLaren along the way. “But in the end, I was closer to leaving Formula 1 than signing for another team.”
“You stop or you don’t stop, so it’s a 50-50 decision,” he added. “I seriously thought about packing it in. But in the end, I just love racing.”
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147 points off the lead, and no win all year
The backdrop gives those words real weight. Verstappen is 28, with four straight world titles behind him from 2021 to 2024. He has yet to win a race this season.
He sits sixth in the championship after finishing second on Sunday at the Spanish Grand Prix in Madrid, 147 points adrift of leader Kimi Antonelli. Between 2021 and 2024 he never once ended a season outside the top two in the drivers’ standings. A gap this size is unfamiliar ground.
He brushed aside the idea that outside pressure had anything to do with the contract call. “If both sides want to work together long term, why wait?” he asked. “The criticism doesn’t bother me. I don’t care what other people think of me. The only thing that matters is what my family, my management, the team and I feel.”
What the record means, and what comes next
Verstappen insists there is nothing left to prove. “I am a four-time world champion, and after my first title, I had already achieved everything I wanted,” he said. “I don’t race for the history books, but for myself, the team and our fans. That is why the decision was made quickly in the end.”
Asked whether he could still be on the grid at 45, as Fernando Alonso is with Aston Martin, he would not commit. “I don’t think so, but it’s impossible to predict. I will keep racing as long as I enjoy it.” The championship resumes in two weeks in Baku with the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
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