Jul.18 (GMM) Fresh intrigue surrounds Max Verstappen’s future after both his father Jos and manager Raymond Vermeulen were spotted separately entering McLaren’s hospitality unit on Friday at Spa.
The visits came just days after Vermeulen and Jos Verstappen met the now-retired Red Bull adviser Dr Helmut Marko in Amsterdam, fuelling yet more speculation about the quadruple world champion’s future.
A source close to the Verstappen camp insisted the McLaren meetings were solely about the newly announced collaboration between Verstappen.com Racing and 15-year-old McLaren junior Dries Van Langendonck.
Even so, the sightings have intensified speculation that Verstappen continues to assess his options beyond Red Bull.
F1 legend Niki lauda’s son Mathias believes Ferrari should also be part of the conversation.
“Max is clever,” he told Osterreich.
“He asks himself: What options are there, where can I get the best car for next year? And besides Red Bull, that only leaves Mercedes and Ferrari.
“It’s surprising that Ferrari hasn’t been mentioned in the media so far. If I were Ferrari, I would at least talk to Verstappen.
“Max gets so much out of a car. There’s no one else like him out there.”
Asked about Marko’s belief that both Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton cannot fit at Ferrari at the same time, Lauda added: “Who knows what Lewis will be doing next year?
“But maybe Red Bull is the best option for Max anyway. Apparently, their engine isn’t so bad, and things can change very quickly in F1.”
On track at Spa, Verstappen sounded encouraged despite complaining over the radio about gearbox shifts during Friday practice. “The car is in a pretty decent window,” he said afterwards.
“In FP2, I think the real differences were visible, but that was as expected and it’s not alarming. The balance was also quite good.”
Red Bull has reverted to its previous rear wing after the reliability failures suffered with its innovative ‘Macarena’ design.
Technical director Pierre Wache says the revised version should return as early as next weekend in Hungary. “It needs to be ready for Budapest,” he said.
“We’ve already proven to the FIA what we’ve done and how we’ll fix it. Now we’re proceeding cautiously.
“We don’t want to take any risks – we want to be 100 percent sure.”
Asked if the problem centred on the wing’s activation mechanism, Wache smiled. “That has to do with it.
“Sorry, but I don’t have to go into detail about what we’re doing, because that’s part of the advantage of that wing. It provides extra speed to use that wing.”
Ferrari boss Frederic Vasseur, meanwhile, insists his team’s similar concept has not encountered the same issues.
“It doesn’t run the same way,” he said. “We had no problems.
“We were a bit slow at first, which is why we didn’t use the wing the first two or three races. After race four we put it into use for the races.”
