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Red Bull boss Helmut Marko has lashed out at George Russell and dismissed his claims that Mercedes is talking to Max Verstappen for a potential move. The 2025 F1 silly season was more or less silent for most of the season.
Everybody expected most of the driver line-ups to stay the same as the year continued, and not many changes were expected in the top seats from 2025 to 2026. As it turns out, this is not essentially true. George Russell's contract extension with Mercedes has continued to get delayed, and one of the reasons for it was revealed by the British driver himself early in the weekend.
Talking to the media about why his contract extension has not been signed, George Russell revealed that Mercedes was having chats with Max Verstappen and weighing its options for the future. The revelation did not get completely shut down by Toto Wolff either, as the Austrian more or less admitted that there were a few conversations going on between the team and the Dutch driver.
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The question of Max Verstappen having a chat with the Mercedes boss Toto Wolff was put to Helmut Marko, who lashed out at George Russell for 'talking too much'. The Austrian told PlanetF1,
"What’s up with him now? Russell does talk, but I thought he had a contract for next year. That must have changed since Montreal. So that victory actually damaged him.”
He added,
"We can’t actually take this seriously. Russell just talks too much.”
What George Russell revealed about Max Verstappen and Mercedes
The British driver's contract delay has started to become a talking point this season. The driver has slowly taken over the role of a team leader at Mercedes, who is getting the best out of the car this season. At the same time, with Max Verstappen potentially available, one can't fault Toto Wolff for trying to poach him.
The F1 Austrian GP was, however, the first time that George Russell revealed that Mercedes was talking to Max Verstappen, as he said,
"As Mercedes, they want to be back on top. And if you’re going to be back on top you need to make sure you’ve got the best drivers, the best engineers, the best pit crew and that’s what Mercedes are chasing."
He added,
“So it’s only normal that conversations with the likes of Verstappen are ongoing. But from my side, if I’m performing as I’m doing, what have I got to be concerned about? There are two seats in every Formula 1 team.” (via PlanetF1)
It would be interesting to see how everything pans out from here as the future of three drivers hangs in the balance, especially since there is a lack of clarity on what happens with Kimi Antonelli should the team want to keep hold of Russell as well as Verstappen.
