Max Verstappen Is Never Leaving Red Bull, So Kindly Let the Mercedes and Ferrari Fan-Fiction Die Every few months, like clockwork, the paddock rumor mill spins up the same tired fan-fiction: Max Verstappen is "in talks" with Mercedes. Max is "eyeing" Ferrari. Max is "keeping his options open." And every few months, the same thing happens: absolutely nothing. Because here's the uncomfortable truth the silly-season merchants don't want you to internalize — Max Verstappen is never leaving the Red Bull ecosystem, and pretending otherwise is a great way to sell clicks and a terrible way to understand Formula 1. Let's start with the origin story, because it matters. Max didn't parachute into Red Bull Racing as a hired gun the way Lewis Hamilton strolled into Ferrari. He was grown in the lab. In 2015 he debuted with Scuderia Toro Rosso — Red Bull's junior team, now rebranded Racing Bulls — becoming, at 17, the youngest driver ever to start a Grand Prix. He ran the first four races of 2016 there before Red Bull yanked Daniil Kvyat out of the big-league seat and dropped Max in for the Spanish Grand Prix. He then won that race. On debut. At 18. The youngest winner in F1 history. Red Bull didn't sign Max Verstappen. Red Bull built him. And that's the part the Mercedes-and-Ferrari fantasists conveniently forget. This isn't a mercenary who chases the biggest check every three seasons. This is a guy whose entire professional identity — from a teenager in a junior car to a four-time world champion — has existed inside one organization. Toro Rosso to Red Bull Racing is the exact same pipeline that produced Sebastian Vettel and Daniel Ricciardo, and more recently pushed Yuki Tsunoda up from Racing Bulls in 2025. It's a machine. Max is its masterpiece. You don't walk away from the factory that made you the best in the world to go be someone else's science project. Then there's the money, and oh boy, is there money. Max sits at the very top of the grid's pay scale at a reported $65 million base salary for 2025 — ahead of Lewis Hamilton's roughly $60 million at Ferrari and Charles Leclerc's $34 million. For perspective, that's more than thirty times what some rookies on the grid are pulling in, with the likes of Ollie Bearman, Liam Lawson and Isack Hadjar scraping around the $1 million mark. And the $65 million is just the base. Stack on race-win bonuses, championship incentives and contract kickers, and Max's on-track earnings climb into a stratosphere that, per Forbes, doesn't even include his personal endorsement pile from the likes of EA Sports and Heineken 0.0. Now ask yourself: who's writing a bigger check? Mercedes, who just spent a fortune retooling around Kimi Antonelli on a reported $2 million rookie deal? Ferrari, who already have two of the three highest-paid drivers on the grid clogging the payroll? The math doesn't math. Red Bull doesn't just pay Max to drive; they pay him to BE Red Bull. He's the face on the commercials, the star of the Red Bull Media House content, the guy doing show runs down city streets in an F1 car, the sim-racing obsessive Red Bull happily bankrolls into esports relevance. His contract isn't a driver salary. It's a brand-ambassador megadeal with a steering wheel attached. "But the rumors!" Sure. The rumors. Here's how silly season actually works: Max's camp lets a little smoke drift toward Brackley or Maranello, the internet loses its mind, and suddenly Red Bull is very motivated to keep their golden goose comfortable. It's leverage, not a moving van. Flirting with the neighbors is how you get a better deal at home — and Max has been playing that game long enough to know that the strongest hand in the paddock is the one nobody can actually pry loose. So the next time your timeline explodes with a grainy screenshot and a breathless "MAX TO MERCEDES?!" headline, do yourself a favor and roll your eyes. When people say Max has "always been with Red Bull," they mean it in the most literal sense imaginable — he has never turned a wheel in anger for anyone else, at any level, in Formula 1. Toro Rosso to Red Bull Racing, teenager to legend, and never once outside the family. Mercedes and Ferrari can keep calling. Max isn't answering. He's too busy being the most valuable asset the Red Bull empire has ever produced — and he knows it. Related