Verstappen Contract Chaos: Why the Four-Time Champion Is the Central Piece of a Very Complicated F1 Driver Puzzle

Every Formula 1 driver market has a gravity well — a single name around which every other piece of the puzzle quietly orbits. Heading into the mid-2020s, that name is Max Verstappen, and the puzzle surrounding him is more complicated than ever.

Verstappen’s contract with Red Bull runs through 2028, but it contains performance exit clauses that allow him to walk if he finds himself below a certain championship position at a specific point in the season. Given Red Bull’s current form — or lack of it — sources suggest Verstappen could be a free agent as soon as this summer unless the team enjoys a dramatic reversal in fortunes before the grid heads into the summer break.

If he wants to leave F1 entirely, Verstappen has already confirmed he is weighing that option, having referenced it publicly in Japan. But if he wants to stay in the sport, the obvious landing spot has long been Mercedes.

Team principal Toto Wolff has courted Verstappen openly for two years. But the Austrian’s recent comments to Austria’s OE24 suggest the door may already be closed. We have two drivers with whom we have long-term, multi-year contracts, Wolff said. I couldn’t be happier with both of them. That points clearly to George Russell and Kimi Antonelli being locked in beyond this season — though in F1, as Wolff well knows, nothing is ever completely concrete.

McLaren presents another possibility, particularly given that Verstappen’s race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase is making the same move. But Zak Brown has been vocal about having the best driver line-up on the grid, and both Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri are contracted through at least the end of 2027. Add in McLaren’s particular approach to managing its drivers, and the fit is not obviously there.

Ferrari, meanwhile, appears to be blocked by existing commitments. Sources indicate Lewis Hamilton signed a firm three-year deal when he joined for 2025, putting him in scarlet through at least 2027, and Charles Leclerc’s contract is believed to run equally long.

Then there is Fernando Alonso. The two-time world champion’s Aston Martin deal expires at the end of this season, and he turns 45 in July. He has just become a father for the first time, and he has admitted publicly he entered 2026 treating it as potentially his final season in the sport. The question is whether a man who still drives with genuine passion wants to spend what may be his last years in the fastest cars on the planet fighting near the back of the grid, especially now that Adrian Newey — the designer Alonso finally joined forces with — is working under a compromised timeline that has produced a deeply uncompetitive car.

F1 has more than seven months before its next scheduled races in the Middle East, and there is no need for the sport’s decision-makers to move quickly. The Verstappen situation will develop on its own terms, shaped by results on track and conversations that will, as always, happen well away from the cameras. What is certain is that the four-time champion’s next move will reshape the entire grid — and almost every other driver is currently waiting to see where he lands.