Why F1's most exciting driver has committed to Red Bull
Max Verstappen and Red Bull surprised everyone by committing pen to paper on a lucrative new contract before any 2020 F1 cars turned a wheel. BEN ANDERSON gets to grips with exactly why both parties took the sting out of F1's annual driver-market 'silly season' well before the actual racing began
"I am very happy at the moment where I am because I think it's a very exciting project. Everybody is looking in the same direction, everybody wants the same thing - everybody wants to win, everybody in the team are winners. You can feel that mentality is there. I think the team is definitely coming on very strong."
When Max Verstappen spoke these words to us in late August, 2019, it seemed like the sort of carefully considered banality you would expect any contracted Formula 1 driver to say about their current team. At the time, speculation Max would refuse to see out the final year of his Red Bull contract and make a sensational switch to Mercedes had just been quashed by Toto Wolff's decision to retain Valtteri Bottas and farm Esteban Ocon out to Renault. Max would be staying put after all.
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