David Coulthard does not expect Formula 1's summer break to produce the announcement the paddock keeps bracing for.
Asked on the Up To Speed podcast whether Max Verstappen could deliver something on the scale of Lewis Hamilton's move to Ferrari, the 13-time grand prix winner declined to speculate. "I don't ask, quite frankly. Because, you know, in that context it wouldn't be my business," he said. His instinct is that Red Bull's recent form has bought it time: "I think that there's a willingness there to want to sort out the issues that they've been experiencing. And let's be honest, the last two races were two podium races."
Coulthard expects the quiet fortnight to be filled by somebody, just not by Red Bull. "I don't see any big news coming out of Red Bull or Max during the summer break," he said. "Someone will have some news, because they'll want to take advantage of, let's say, an eager audience during the two-week break. So, there might be a major sponsor or something being announced."
He was speaking against a backdrop of fresh photographs. Motorsport.com's Lydia Mee reported that images circulating on social media show Verstappen and partner Kelly Piquet holidaying with Toto Wolff and F1 Academy managing director Susie Wolff, chatting on a yacht deck and riding jet skis and hoverboards. The families holidayed together in Sardinia last August too.
Wolff explained the connection in 2024, tracing it to Verstappen's father. "I have gotten on with Jos for all my life, maybe because we're a bit similar. I think we had a very good relationship since Max became on the radar, racing single-seaters," he said. "Probably our meeting in my living room in Vienna was the first big Formula 1 meeting they did, and we had always the understanding of how things should work for them and for us."
He has since ruled out the move the photographs imply. With Kimi Antonelli leading the standings on 219 points and George Russell third on 160, Wolff told Sky Sports F1: "We don't want to change things. We've said it also to George, and I think it's a line-up that is good for us. I'm very happy with the two of them."
Mark Hughes, in The Race's The Long Run column, argues that if Verstappen does move, Mercedes and McLaren are not the interesting options. "If I were Fernando Alonso I'd get my signature on another Aston contract ASAP and if I were Max Verstappen I'd fancy the challenge of that way more than just plugging myself into a fast McLaren," he wrote.
The reason is Adrian Newey, and specifically his decision to abandon the season-opening Aston Martin rather than patch it. "Showing a total indifference to perception, knowing the initial car was going to be miles off, he decided he'd just let it run like that for half-a-season while he worked at attacking the fundamentals of the deficit," Hughes wrote. On Newey's record of contrarian calls: "He doesn't think like the others. He's sometimes wrong but when he is the knowledge he gains usually enables him to come back with something devastating."
Verstappen's Red Bull deal runs to the end of 2028, with an exit clause understood to be available if he is not at least second in the drivers' standings at the summer break. He is sixth on 109 points, 110 behind Antonelli. The clause is live; the driver is not talking.
"I don't want to say yes and no, and this and that about my future," he said ahead of the Belgian Grand Prix. "I said already many times that if there was something new, I would say it myself."
