Despite Russell and Antonelli, Herbert sees Verstappen at Mercedes

Antonelli will be driving in FP1 for Mercedes in place of George Russell, his teammate when he moves to the team for next season. While it has not been a secret that Mercedes has coveted Max Verstappen's services all along, and that is not over according to F1 winner turned pundit Johnny Herbert.

Mercedes had held all the driver cards. after Hamilton shock decision to ditch them for Ferrari, as the team with one of the most coveted seasons in motorsport sought a new driver. They could have had Carlos Sainz. They might have even tempted Sebastian Vettel out of retirement. They could promote Kimi, but the guy they want most is Max Verstappen.

Talks happened between Team Verstappen and Toto Wolff. But with Max unavailable, they have stuck to Antonelli with the Mercedes F1 boss all but confirming the 18-year-old will be on the F1 grid with them next year. Hence the FP1 at Monza on Friday and a press call, where an announcement is expected on the matter.

However, F1 winner turned pundit Johnny Herbert does not believe that Mercedes have given up on Max Verstappen. The state of flux that Red Bull is in with key players departing the team (including Adrian Newey and Jonathan Wheatley) and at the same time contending with the fact that they are no longer the dominant force Max was for the past season and a half.

But winless since the Spanish GP in May, six rounds ago, the wheels are sort of coming off their Title defence, although Max is still the favourite to notch up his fourth F1 World Championship in a row. It is going to be close with Lando Norris and McLaren enjoying the kind of performance superiority we saw from Red Bull last year.

Far more at risk and not a done deal is Red Bull in the F1 Constructors World Championship fight. Verstappen is still finishing on the podium despite the victory drought and pulling in points for his team. But in the sister Red Bull, Sergio Perez is AWOL.

With Red Bull's brain drain doing damage and the RB20 problematic as a background, Herbert believes that Verstappen may be in a Mercedes as early as 2026, even though his contract with Red Bull only runs out at the end of 2028. But you know what they say about contracts in F1.

Who knows how good Antonelli will be? Who knows if Russell can lead Mercedes? Will Verstappen be like Lewis Hamilton is now in his career? Or when Sebastian Vettel moved on to Ferrari after leading Red Bull during their first glory years two decades ago? Too young to quit and looking for alternative challenges. If it's Formula 1, Mercedes or Ferrari are his best bet, but with Verstappen, who knows what his future might hold.

The Dutch ace has never really warmed to the hype of being a F1 driver. He shunned the A-lister bright lights Hamilton, for instance, embraced and enjoyed. Max is different; he sticks to his own private life rather than make the most of his status as one of the world's most famous sportsmen.

Should Verstappen decide to stay in Formula 1 beyond 2028, Ferrari would be on the shopping list for sure, but Herbert believes Mercedes is the obvious choice when the Red Bull chapter ends. And it will. This is Verstappen's tenth year as part of the Red Bull organisation.

In an interview ahead of the Monza weekend, Herbert said: "There is a press call this weekend. If the deal is done with Antonelli, then that obviously makes things that little bit more complicated, because it's then going to be very, very hard to say, ‘Sorry, Kimi,’ we have signed a contract, but we're thinking of maybe signing Max. I don't know if it has been done or not with Antonelli.

"Jos [Verstappen] has said 2026 is something he and Max are focusing on. Everything has completely changed. They've lost their chief designer, and they've really started to struggle. [Red Bull] are still in the mix for a race but their early season dominance has gone. McLaren and especially Lando have gone up to the next level or two. Then you start thinking, right, where do I need to be for the future?"

Herbert ventured: "The rumours are that Mercedes seems to be ahead of everybody else for the 2026 rule changes. That's the type of trigger you would think that Max and his team would be saying, ‘Maybe we need to jump.’ I think it would be foolish if those conversations didn't happen between Max and Mercedes. As an ex-driver, I think I would be trying to look to the future.

"Toto would be foolish if he did not further the conversation and I think Max would be the right person for them for the future. Who would not want Max Verstappen.

"Christian Horner and Helmut Marko are saying we don't have to panic yet. But panic is something I think they should be thinking about because I think they're in a very, very different situation. And they've got, as I see it, an unhappy driver," reckons Herbert.

The bad blood between Jos Verstappen and Christian Horner during the texting scandal likely remains, if not worse after their 'war' triggered a crisis within the team. Is that over? Or simply an uneasy truce?

Herbert continued: "The warmonger has been Jos. He has been very much at the forefront of criticism of the Red Bull set-up and Christian especially. Can they promise him enough for the coming years? I'm not so sure. I think there is a big question mark on what they are able to show Max in terms of the direction that will allow him to carry on trying to win those world championships.

"Because of that, and because of the way Jos is, and because of the way Max is, they are probably doubting the position that they're in at the present time because it's fallen off of the cliff very quickly. Very, very quickly."

Herbert went on: "As for civil war? Not yet perhaps. There's no battle yet. No, but it's building. There is definitely a sense of it’s building within. Do you think it could rupture? There's always a strong chance of it. There is always going to be a breaking point because the things are not going the way they want it to."

Of course, the 'elephants in the room' are the departures of Newey and Wheatley who along with Horner and Marko were the stalwarts of the team's leadership. Four pillars that kept the operation at the highest level. Two of those are gone. Will something give?

Herbert believes it is happening as the season unfolds: "It's obvious that the exits of key personnel has 'destabilised' Red Bull. People only have to look at what's happening on track. It's not down to just what I think, it's damn obvious. Christian and Helmut can say it’s not quite as bad as it looks.

"It looks fundamentally nowhere near where they expected themselves to be and nowhere near where they were at the beginning of the season. We're only talking about just over halfway and it's completely flipped on its head for them.

"They haven't been able to do any, from what I've seen anyway, any real upgrade, bounce back in any shape or form. It only takes one little reliability issue or one little coming together with someone and not collecting those points and Lando getting maximum points, and the situation completely changes very quickly."

Herbert compares Verstappen's early form, seven wins in the first ten races, to the current 'slump' now winless in five races: "Max was winning at the beginning of the year. He's finishing second and that's probably all he needs to do. But it can change so quickly and Lando is only going to be putting the pressure on more and more as he gets closer and closer.

"It's down to Max just to only get the results that he's able to do with the car that he's got. But as I said, it can flip around very, very quickly in one weekend. He got away with his little clash with Lewis in Hungary and he was still able to get some points on the board.

"That aggressiveness maybe has to be tempered in a more logical way for him to understand, ’I can't risk it because I'm going to lose out from that point. So, are we going to see that maturity come in where sometimes he asks himself, ‘Is it worth the risk?

"We will still see him on the limit. But there is a point sometimes you've got to go, ‘This is going to be highly risky and very damaging for me if I do that."

Outspoken about his dislike for F1's era of pop-up race tracks, allergic to the F1 glamour lifestyle and keen to experience other road racing disciplines, it's not unthinkable Verstappen would quit F1 or at least take a sabbatical.

"It would be 'very unfair on fans' if Max retired after 2026," argued Herbert. "Moving to a new team could reignite his enthusiasm. I hope it never turns into a reality. I think it would be very unfair to us, as race fans, to lose Max at such a young age.

"He’d only be 28. That's still massively young. You don't always have perfect seasons. You have ups and downs, and sometimes you have to have a reset by going to another team and then hopefully build."

Herbert points to Verstappen's nemesis, seven-time F1 World Champion Lewis Hamilton, who also made some key decisions: "Lewis did that when he went from McLaren to Mercedes and it was success for like five years. And then they started to struggle. But now there's a bounce back. Now he's done his Ferrari deal, and it may be something that might just benefit him. And for Max, it's a very similar thing. Now his mind is not 2026 and I am going to leave."

Hypothetically if he did ditch F1 (Fernando Alonso style) for a couple of years? Herbert guessed: "He could do Le Mans for example. That’s one thing that I know he wants to do. But that can happen in the future. there are as I said, that don't go perfectly foreign. He might end this year, not winning the world championship.

"Does that crush his motivation to say, I've had enough? I hope not, because I hope he's better than that, because I hope he's got the mentality to realize that he can beat the best. We know that. We've seen that. It just takes a little bit longer to put yourself in the right situation to do it again. It would be very unfortunate if that was to happen.

"I look at Max and I ask myself, ‘Has he peaked yet? Have we seen the best of Max?’ The answer. No, we haven't. There's still more to come. There's still more things he's going to learn. And by using those things that he's learned, he's only going to be stronger when he's in the car.

"It would be a foolish thing to walk away just because things aren't going your way. It's. It's the way life is sometimes. It's not always simple. Everybody goes through it. All the world champions. I've gone through it. I don't want to see him leave because I know we haven't seen the best of him yet," concluded Herbert, speaking to the Media Team at Poker Apps LTD.