The Verstappen silly season has a new ingredient. David Coulthard, speaking on the Up to Speed podcast and quoted by Racing News365, has argued that Ferrari, not Mercedes or McLaren, would be the most natural home for Max Verstappen if he ever decides to leave Red Bull.
It is an unexpected pitch. Verstappen has been linked all year with the only two teams currently capable of fighting Mercedes for race wins, with the McLaren rumour fuelled by the impending move of his long-time race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase to Woking in 2028. Mercedes has been the louder rumour, partly because Verstappen has been racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 machinery in his sportscar outings at the Nurburgring. Coulthard thinks neither fits him as well as the Scuderia.
"I think that Max fits better in the Ferrari world than the Mercedes world," Coulthard said. "I know that they have this good relationship and I know that he's racing a Mercedes in the GT3 events that he does. But the freedom to be Max, I think he would be a more comfortable fit at Ferrari because you would just turn up, drive quickly, presumably win the races, and then head home."
It is a striking framing. Coulthard, who drove for McLaren and Red Bull in his own career, is essentially arguing that the corporate weight of the Mercedes machine, with Toto Wolff at the centre and a heavily structured engineering culture around Kimi Antonelli and George Russell, would not suit a driver who has built his whole identity on autonomy. Ferrari, for all its political reputation, has historically given star drivers space.
The complication, of course, is that Ferrari already has Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton under contract, with Oliver Bearman at Haas being groomed as the long-term Maranello succession plan. A Verstappen path to red would require something dramatic to happen at the front of that queue.
The wider context is that Verstappen has not hidden his unhappiness with the 2026 regulations. Even after the rule tweaks delivered a more competitive Miami Grand Prix, he made it clear that a winning Red Bull would not change his philosophical concerns with the new energy-management formula. That unease has now triggered an open warning from one of his closest paddock allies.
Mark Webber, also speaking via Racing News365, has urged Formula 1 not to take Verstappen's continued participation for granted. "Naturally, Red Bull would love Max to stay. That's incredibly easy to predict," Webber said. The Australian then expanded the argument beyond Milton Keynes, suggesting that everyone from Liberty Media to Verstappen's twenty-one rivals to the wider fan base has a stake in keeping the four-time champion on the grid.
Webber's intervention is significant because it reframes the issue. The Verstappen-to-Mercedes or Verstappen-to-McLaren story has been treated for months as a transfer rumour. Webber is treating it as an existential question for the sport. Verstappen could simply leave Formula 1 at the end of 2026, and his very public flirtation with Le Mans, Ford and the Nurburgring 24 Hours suggests it is not a hollow threat.
Coulthard's Ferrari pitch may sound left-field, but it is part of the same conversation: Formula 1 is starting to plan around the possibility that the dominant driver of the era might not be on the grid in 2027.
Source: youtube.com