Max Verstappen told to give ‘serious’ consideration to Mercedes with Red Bull ‘wave’ in question

Max Verstappen has to give “serious” consideration to joining Mercedes, not in 2026 but next season, that’s according to Robert Doornbos.

Despite finally giving a “yes” to the question of will he be a Red Bull driver next year, F1’s rumour mill continues to suggest Verstappen future is anything but certain.

‘Max Verstappen should seriously consider whether he should join Mercedes’

Red Bull’s off-track troubles have dominated the team’s news cycle this season, starting with the Christian Horner investigation, progressing to Jos Verstappen’s reaction to it, that followed by speculation Helmut Marko could be ousted.

But in the midst of the alleged power struggle, Red Bull won five of the season’s first seven races, all going the way of Verstappen.

However, today the team and its triple World Champion have Mercedes and McLaren nipping on their heels meaning Verstappen has bagged just two wins in the last five Grands Prix, with Austria and Silverstone marking his first back-to-back losses since 2022.

That those back-to-back losses both ended with victories for Mercedes, the team that’s been publicly courting Verstappen much to the ire of Red Bull, has Doornbos suggesting the 26-year-old should give a move “serious” consideration.

“I still believe he will go to Mercedes,” the former F1 driver told Motorsport.com . “We talk about 2026, because it’s important to be with the team with the best engine.

“But I think Mercedes would rather have it happen in 2025, because then they can wave goodbye to one World Champion and welcome another World Champion.

“Since Mercedes didn’t have a competitive car earlier in the year, it was a ‘no brainer’ for Max to stay with Red Bull next year, who were still quite dominant at that time.

“But that has suddenly changed.

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“That could be due to all kinds of factors, such as the unrest within the team, the departure of Adrian Newey and a second driver who is causing terrible headaches.

“There is simply a lot going on behind the scenes at Red Bull and at the same time you see Mercedes becoming increasingly competitive. That team is on a serious streak.”

As such the Dutchman reckons it is time for his compatriot to decide if he thinks Red Bull’s dominance is over or if they can recover.

“Max has to see whether Red Bull can still get things back on track or whether the wave the team was surfing on is over. In any case, it should not deteriorate much further,” he added.

“In principle, Max still has a contract, but in my opinion, Max should seriously consider whether he should join Mercedes before 2025. If Mercedes really turns out to be that good, he could have a great gap year at Mercedes next year and then dominate again from 2026.”

Doornbos disagrees with Horner’s ‘distraction tactic’ comment

Doornbos also weighed in on Horner’s comment about Lewis Hamilton a recent press conference.

The Red Bull team boss questioned the “motives” behind Mercedes’ “distraction tactic” of trying to sign Verstappen given the “driver that created all the movement in the market had all the information about the engines and 2026 regulations and so on and chose to leave and left a vacancy at Mercedes”,..

Doornbos, however, is convinced Lewis Hamilton’s decision to leave Mercedes was not in reaction to the team’s 2026 plans.

“Horner can say that Lewis is leaving Mercedes because he is not impressed with what they are developing for 2026,” he said. But I see it differently.

“I think Lewis is simply ready for a new environment. And the opportunity to go to Ferrari only comes around once in a lifetime, if it comes around at all. So I think it was a very different decision that Lewis made.”

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