Christian Horner not ruling out Max Verstappen x Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull lineup for 2025

Three-time F1 champion Max Verstappen is expected to continue with Red Bull for the next five years. However, the second seat at Red Bull will be up for grabs heading into 2025, with team boss Christian Horner admitting that "everything is open" for their lineup.

The top contenders for the second seat include AlphaTauri driver Daniel Ricciardo and incumbent driver Sergio Perez, whose current contract expires at the end of 2024. Both drivers will be vying for the most competitive ride in F1, hoping to impress the Red Bull hierarchy with their performances.

Speaking to Sky Sports F1, Horner admitted he is open to a Max Verstappen x Daniel Ricciardo driver lineup for 2025.

"As a team, you want to field the most competitive pairing that you can have, and you want the right dynamic in the team," he said.

"Max and Checo have been a tremendously successful pairing. Checo, in his three years with us, has finished fourth, third and second so he’s on a good trajectory. Daniel is well known to us – it's great to have him back in the Red Bull fold – and of course everything is open for 2025 onwards," he added.

Christian Horner insisted the team is open to drivers outside the Red Bull family as well:

"For us, to have options internally and also externally is no bad place to be."

Daniel Ricciardo was previously paired alongside Max Verstappen between 2016 to 2018. The Australian had the measure of a young Verstappen but eventually left the team seeking new challenges.

Coming full circle, he joined Red Bull as a reserve driver in 2023 and was called up to drive for sister team AlphaTauri midway through the season. A wrist fracture sidelined him for a few weekends before he made a full recovery.

In a recent appearance on F1's Beyond the Grid podcast, Ricciardo revealed it would be "perfect" to end his career at Red Bull, but didn't put any timeline on his move.

---

Max Verstappen is not interested in Brad Pitt-starred F1 movie

Lewis Hamilton-backed F1 movie starring Hollywood celebrity Brad Pitt has made waves in the F1 world, with the production team filming during actual race weekends.

While the movie has piqued the interest of many fans, Max Verstappen is not interested in the "over-dramatized" movie. In a recent interview with Formule.nl, he said:

"Yes, so many. Ocean’s Eleven, Ocean’s Twelve and so on, those roles stick with me. I like films anyway and Brad Pitt is of course a super actor."

He added:

"Before the US Grand Prix in Austin, I saw a few clips from the new film. They were shown during the drivers’ meeting with an explanation of how they had filmed it all."

"Nice to see, but it doesn’t really interest me that much. I don’t need to see a film of my own sport. This film is of course a made-up story and everything is always over-dramatised, you have to love that. I personally don’t have that much with that," he continued.