F1 Rumor: Is Red Bull purposely sabotaging Verstappen's '24 F1 car?

Is Red Bull purposely sabotaging Max Verstappen’s 2024 F1 car? Rumor has it that Red Bull has two huge incentives to give Max Verstappen a slow car in 2024.

–by Mark Cipolloni–

1) It does not have to pay Verstappen $1 million every time he wins, a savings of $17 million. If he continues to lose the remainder of the year, he will end the season with 7 wins and 17 losses in 24 races, yet can still squeak out the Drivers’ Title. Former team driver Robert Doornbos thinks Red Bull’s budget is stressed to the max due to the current situation – made worse by Sergio Perez’s big crash at the wheel of the updated RB20 in Baku, which was not his first huge crash. “There’s a lot of work for Red Bull and the design team and at the same time a lot of headache,” he told his Youtube channel, “because the damage from Perez all comes out of the development budget.”

2) By finishing down the order in the Constructors’ Championship, the team gets more all-important aero development time in 2025 when work begins on the all-important 2026 car.

While this rumor sounds preposterous to most, it could be why key people like Adrian Newey and Jonathan Wheatley are leaving. The Adrian Newey Sexting scandal could just be a ruse to cover up the real motive.

(GMM) One former F1 driver has a theory as to why Max Verstappen’s mood may have dipped over the course of the past weeks and months.

–by Andrew Maitland–

1997 world champion Jacques Villeneuve said after Baku that Verstappen’s feisty demeanor appears to have gone missing, replaced by a “downbeat” mood.

“I believe he loses a million dollars for every race he doesn’t win,” another ex-F1 driver, Ralf Schumacher, told Sky Deutschland, referring to the sorts of bonus incentives typical of Red Bull contracts.

“That’s an unbelievable amount,” the German added. “Last year he was so successful so that’s a lot of money he’s missing out on now, on top of the fact that things are no longer going well in sporting terms.”

Max Verstappen poses for a portrait during Red Bull Racing 2024 Season Launch RB20 in London, UK // Sam Todd / Red Bull Content Pool

Red Bull is feverishly retracing its development steps, all the way back to mid-2023, to get to the bottom of how to cure the 2024 car’s current handling woes.

A big complication for the energy drink-owned team is that while the Dutch driver is under contract through 2028, several exit clauses exist in that deal – and Mercedes and Aston Martin are already openly courting him.

“Max has a strong connection to Red Bull and is very loyal,” team advisor and Verstappen mentor Dr Helmut Marko told Bild newspaper. “We put our trust in him when he was 17 and gave him a cockpit. He hasn’t forgotten that.

“But he won’t be driving in Formula 1 like Fernando Alonso when he’s over 40. That’s why he wants to be as successful as possible right now.”

Marko openly admits that Verstappen, 26, may theoretically be about to squeeze out of his Red Bull contract. “Every driver’s contract has performance-related exit clauses,” the 81-year-old Austrian confirms.

“It is up to us to build him a car that is so good that he cannot and does not want to activate them. In Azerbaijan we were again much closer to McLaren and Ferrari.”