Verstappen to McLaren: the exit clause and Lambiase
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- Verstappen holds an exit clause in his Red Bull contract allowing departure in 2027 if he sits outside the top two in the Drivers' Championship at the August summer break — he is currently 7th, 58 points behind George Russell in second, with three races to go.
- Verstappen's camp initiated the recent McLaren talks rather than the team approaching them, per Sky Sports News, reversing the dynamic that had seen McLaren dismissed as a non-realistic landing spot since 2024.
- Mercedes interest has cooled because Kimi Antonelli has won the first five races of his career in succession, convincing Toto Wolff he already has a superstar, while Aston Martin — the slowest team on the grid, trailing newcomers Cadillac — is no longer a viable option.
- Gianpiero Lambiase, Verstappen's race engineer of the last decade, agreed in April to join McLaren in 2028, potentially as team principal — a move the source flags as the single biggest factor making McLaren an appealing destination.
- Red Bull has lost Adrian Newey, Rob Marshall, Jonathan Wheatley and motorsport advisor Helmut Marko (pushed out at the end of 2025) since founder Dietrich Mateschitz's death in 2022, an exodus the source links to Verstappen's openness to leaving.
- McLaren CEO Zak Brown declined to fully shut down the idea on Sky Sports F1 at the Austrian GP, saying: "If for some strange reason, someone slipped on a banana peel getting out of the tub, then of course Max is a four-time world champion."
- Verstappen has not had a consistently winning car since mid-2024, though Red Bull's Austrian GP upgrade let him challenge for victory for the first time this season — a performance that could yet influence his calculus before the summer break.
Why it matters: Verstappen sits 58 points off the top two with three races before his exit clause can be triggered in August, and his race engineer Lambiase has already committed to McLaren in 2028. If the clause activates, the four-time champion would join the reigning constructors' champion, dismantling F1's established driver hierarchy and reshuffling the competitive order for 2027.
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