David Coulthard believes that Max Verstappen will remain at Red Bull “for the rest of his career” due to the team allowing him to “be Max”, with the Dutchman having participated in the Nurburgring 24 Hours last weekend.
While Verstappen holds a contract to race for Red Bull through to the end of 2028, speculation has still arisen over his future at certain stages, which included rumours circulating during 2025 about possible talks with Mercedes.
However, Coulthard – who raced for the Milton Keynes-based squad himself between 2005 and 2008 – feels that the team’s approach suits the four-time World Champion in a way that other squads may not.
“Max will not be going anywhere because there’s no other Formula 1 team that would allow him to be Max,” Coulthard said on the Up To Speed podcast.
“McLaren wouldn’t be able to do it. Ferrari wouldn’t be able to do it. Mercedes wouldn’t be able to do it, despite the fact he was driving a Mercedes, just because of the investment that goes into the individual driver, but Red Bull do.
“And actually, in fairness and in the spirit of Mr [Dietrich] Mateschitz, the founder of Red Bull, that’s exactly… I remember when I first met him before signing to drive for the team, I asked him, ‘What do you expect of me?’ And he said, ‘Be yourself’. Max is being himself.
“That’s why we’ll cut the speculation of a couple of weeks ago. Right now, Max is staying with Red Bull for the rest of his career.”
Coulthard went on to praise Verstappen’s abilities when driving in other categories, with the 28-year-old and his team mates having been in the lead at the Nurburgring 24 Hours before a driveshaft issue with the car put them out of contention.
“It’s one of those things in sport, actually, which is if you think of racquet and ball sports, you think, if you’re a squash world champion, you’d think you’d have a fair chance playing a game of tennis against [Jannik] Sinner, but of course you wouldn’t, and the same that Sinner wouldn’t win in squash,” Coulthard explained.
“You’ve got to be a sort of specialist in your field to really be at the top. And then you have someone like a Max where he somehow… I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s ambidextrous. He just seems to be good at everything he does that involves four wheels.”
Having driven the Nurburgring circuit himself, Coulthard also voiced his admiration for Verstappen in facing the challenge of the iconic track.
“That is a scary racetrack,” the former F1 driver said. “I’ve been around that, and the commitment that at that level you need to have to be competitive, to be at the front like they were… Sadly, we reported on this podcast a couple of weeks ago, there was a driver who lost his life on that very track, such is the nature of the challenge of the racetrack.
“So we should not sort of just look at it as, ‘Oh, Max loves driving so much he’s just out having fun on the weekends’. If he was doing that, he could go to any of the FIA-regulated tracks that are very similar of the current Formula 1 tracks.
“But to go there, this is old-school commitment, and that’s what sets him apart from the others. The others are technically very good racing drivers, there’s no question about it. I would question whether any other driver on the Formula 1 grid right now would accept the challenge to go and race at the Nurburgring.”
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