Max Verstappen to McLaren and why it makes sense as F1 insider admits 'now is the time'

The F1 2026 championship is currently led by Kimi Antonelli, this weekend is the British Grand Prix and Lewis Hamilton has finally won a race with Ferrari. Yet everyone is talking about Max Verstappen.

Red Bull's star driver may only be seventh in the drivers' championship even after a season's best result of P2 in Austria last time out, but that's exactly why he's the talk of the paddock.

The Dutchman is contracted to the energy drink giants until the end of 2028, but is understood to have a contract clause that would allow him to activate an early exit at the end of this season if he is outside the top two in the standings by the summer break.

With just three races to go until that break rolls around later this month, former Alpine F1 team principal Otmar Szafnauer thinks it makes complete sense that Verstappen and his team would be shopping around the grid, especially given the talent from Red Bull that sits among McLaren's ranks.

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Why would Max Verstappen consider McLaren F1 switch?

Speaking on an episode of the High Performance Racing podcast ahead of the British GP, Szafnauer weighed in on the Verstappen to McLaren reports, stating: "Now's the time."

Expanding on his answer, Szafnauer said: "Talking doesn't mean you're going to do anything. It's just you've got to weigh up your options. You need good information to make a good decision. And as far as McLaren goes, I mean, what? They've won the championship two times in a row. I mean, they don't look as stellar this year.

"However, Pete Prodromou’s there from Red Bull. Rob Marshall's there from Red Bull. GP [Gianpiero Lambiase, Verstappen's race engineer], he's going and they get on well. He's going."

Podcast host Jake Humphrey then pointed out how likely it would be for Verstappen to remain in contact with all of Red Bull’s outgoing staff, to which Szafnauer replied: "Yeah. Well, they would say, ‘How good is it? What are you going to do in the future?’ And then they're going to tell him.

"And now I hear Pedals [Paul Monaghan, long-serving Chief Engineer at Red Bull] is leaving. I didn't see him all weekend. I don't think he's going to McLaren…I heard Cadillac, but I wanted I wanted to talk to him.”

Monaghan is one of the last remaining figures within the Red Bull garage from Christian Horner's time who has remained at the team after the Englishman's abrupt sacking last summer.

Former Ferrari engineer Rob Smedley then chimed in to agree with Szafnauer, saying: "I’m with Otmar. They’re going to talk to everyone, right? It is their absolute duty.

"So, they're going to talk… not everybody that's an exaggeration, but they're going to talk to all the top teams and they're going to see what's out there and what their best option is."

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