Christian Horner gives Max Verstappen update amid Aston Martin rumours

Max Verstappen pictured with Christian Horner on the grid.
Christian Horner has acknowledged that Red Bull must keep delivering competitive machinery in order to keep Max Verstappen’s hunger satiated.
Rumours about Verstappen’s long-term future have swirled over the past year, although the Dutch driver is under contract with Red Bull until the end of the F1 2028 season.
Christian Horner: Max Verstappen has great trust in Red Bull
Verstappen is approaching almost a decade racing with the Milton Keynes-based squad, but his affinity with the Red Bull brand stems back to 2014 before his arrival in Formula 1 with the then-Toro Rosso squad (now Racing Bulls).
The Dutch driver won his fourth consecutive Drivers’ World Championship in 2024, with the combination of Verstappen and Red Bull going on a run of dominance that began in 2021 when the partnership toppled the Lewis Hamilton/Mercedes combination.
Heading into the final year of the current regulations, Verstappen is under contract for another four full seasons, but speculation has mounted in recent months that he could be tempted away to another team.
Through 2024, Mercedes bore the loudest of this speculation, as team boss Toto Wolff made it clear that Verstappen would be an ideal candidate to replace the departing Lewis Hamilton.
With question marks over how well Red Bull will start next year’s new regulation cycle as it rolls out for the first time as an engine manufacturer, having established a partnership with Ford to create Red Bull Powertrains (RBPT), the possibility that the more experienced Mercedes power unit manufacturers have could make the Brackley-based squad a tempting proposition for Verstappen.
However, more recently, Aston Martin has entered the conversation. Lawrence Stroll’s team has gone through a huge transformation in recent months, with a brand-new technological campus offering a new wind tunnel alongside its new R&D and manufacturing facilities, while Stroll’s vision has secured the signatures of high-profile engineers like Andy Cowell, Enrico Cardile, and Adrian Newey.
Added to that is the switch from Red Bull to Aston Martin of Honda’s power unit supply, with the Japanese manufacturer making a proper comeback to F1 – perhaps another feather in the cap for Stroll’s outfit as the rumours about a possible Verstappen swap continues to float.
Speaking at the end of the F1 2024 season, Christian Horner said it’s clear his Red Bull team must keep delivering the goods in terms of a competitive car in order to ensure Verstappen doesn’t have his head turned by another outfit.
“The relationship that Max has with the team, you can see there’s a great amount of trust there,” he told media, including PlanetF1.com.
“It’s down to us to deliver, and I’m sure that we’ll provide him with a car that he can fight again for the championship, I’ve got no doubt about that.
“I don’t think it is going to be easy, but it won’t be easy for any of the teams, and I think there are a lot of lessons that we’ve taken out of this year.
“He’s the best driver in the world by a margin. He’s comfortable in the team. He has a great deal of trust in the people around him, and we know that we’ve got to give him a good car to keep him recognising and achieving the kind of results that his talent warrants.”
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With the regulations stable for F1 2025, Red Bull’s clear understanding of the ground-effect rules stands it in good stead for the final year of the current rulebook, particularly as the team turned around the performance of an increasingly difficult RB20 towards the end of 2024 without having the skills of Newey to call upon.
Asked to assess how competitive the RB21 may prove to be, Horner said, “Well, we don’t know what the others are doing.
“So we’re a team who would rather understate and over-deliver and, with stable regs, you can see how the cars have converged. It’s great for the sport that there’s so much competition.
“I’ve got a few more gray hairs this year, but I think [this] year will be a thriller.
“I think that we’ve got the best driver in our car, and I think we’ve got the best team as well. So we’ll work very hard to improve on the weaknesses of RB20.”
Red Bull still has Verstappen’s loyalty, though, with the Dutch driver recently saying he would ideally like to remain with the team he has achieved so much with.
While there is little love lost between Horner and Max’s father Jos – who called for Horner’s job at the start of the F1 2024 season as an internal investigation was carried out into allegations involving the team boss – Max has made it clear that his key focus is on performance and that he has a “really good and strong” relationship with Horner.
To that end, provided he continues to have a car with which to compete, Verstappen sees no reason to go elsewhere.
“It is not like I need to try to win the World Championship somewhere else,” he said.
“That is not a desire from my side. I am just happy where I am at.
“And it would also be very beautiful if you just could stay with one team and race there forever. I would like to believe [that could be with Red Bull]. That is the target.
“Am I bothered about a legacy? No. I don’t value my success because of what other people say. If I am happy, that is all that matters.
“In sport, you also need a bit of luck to be in the right team for a long time. It doesn’t mean that the guy with the most titles is actually the best.”
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