Max Verstappen to Mercedes? Former F1 and Le Mans racer wants Silver Arrows to replace Lewis Hamilton with Red Bull driver

Former Formula 1 and Le Mans racer David Kennedy is of the opinion that Mercedes should try and lure Max Verstappen away from Red Bull Racing.

Lewis Hamilton's Mercedes contract is coming to an end this year, though he is expected to extend his stay with the Brackley-based team for a few more years. He is, however, 38 years old and could soon walk away from the sport.

Verstappen, on the other hand, is just 25 years old and has a long future in the sport, though he is tied down to Red Bull till 2028.

Kennedy, who drove for Shadow and Theodore in F1, believes that younger drivers like Verstappen have “absolute raw speed,” something Hamilton once had.

“You’re looking at the three elements of a driver: you’re looking at his ability to be able to extract the best from the team and the car. It’s probably not as important as it used to be as the engineers do the vast majority of that now,” he told PlanetF1.

“The second element will be that absolute raw speed that you’ve got, which Hamilton had. And Verstappen has, and then you’ve got the race pace.”

The 70-year-old Irishman believes that drivers lose a fraction of their prowess as they hit the mid-30s, which ends up costing them and the team.

“To lead a team, if you’re looking for next year, I’ve seen it over the years that after 35/36 and getting up in years, you just lose that small fraction of qualifying pace. Your race pace is nearly indistinguishable and you can take that with you going on well up in the years, but it’s that raw speed that you lose. We saw in Monaco that was the game changer that won the race for Verstappen,” he opined.

Kennedy urged Mercedes to build their future around the “fairly bulletproof” Verstappen, the best possible option among the current set of drivers.

“If I was Mercedes, I’d be putting down the money for Verstappen! If you were a team that was building and growing, you couldn’t have a better driver. If it’s a team that’s chasing for a championship, he’s terrific, he’s fairly bulletproof,” he opined.

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Max Verstappen tipped to 'end up at Ferrari in a couple of years' by former Le Mans driver Richard Bradley

Former LeMans LMP2 category winner Richard Bradley, meanwhile, believes that Max Verstappen could end up at Ferrari in the future.

Bradley is of the opinion that Verstappen could follow Michael Schumacher's path and join the Prancing Horse, if only for the challenge of turning around the team's fortunes.

“I think that Max is going to end up at Ferrari in a couple of years. It wouldn’t surprise me... especially if he keeps on winning titles and he starts to get complacent. Max is the sort of guy that goes, ‘Okay, well, I’ll do what Schumacher did: I’ll take Ferrari from not being in the position to win, to make them world champions',” Bradley told On Track GP.