Max Verstappen to Replace Lewis Hamilton, While Adrian Newey and Helmut Marko Join Ferrari: F1’s 2024 Silly Season So Far Wrapped Up

Everybody is on the move. If not the cars going over 200mph, it is the team members and drivers heading on to join other teams, with Lewis Hamilton‘s Ferrari bombshell hogging the limelight until the Christian Horner controversy overshadowed it. The 2024 silly season has started quite interestingly. Some repeated patterns are already noticeable in the two rounds we’ve had so far. What are they?

For starters, Max Verstappen is dominating again with a huge lead in both races so far. But Red Bull also had an unsettling controversy. Christian Horner had been accused of inappropriate behavior by a female colleague and ever since then, all hell has broken loose. After being exonerated by the Red Bull GmbH investigation, Horner has been reported to have started a power battle against Helmut Marko and Adrian Newey. The defending world champion is currently siding with advisor Marko, as the divide in the team has started bringing up speculations of members leaving.

Will Max Verstappen’s transfer to Mercedes make F1 fun again?

Honestly, I would love to see this move materializing. Putting Max Verstappen in a car that is anything except a Red Bull should even the playing field by a bit. Although there’s no doubt that he is an exceptional driver, the current pecking order leaves room for only so much excitement. From the outside eye, this might be quite exciting, especially for the new fans who have yet to see competitiveness for the winner. Max Verstappen moving to Mercedes could be a reset that the grid needed.

The controversy has also caught the eye of his father Jos Verstappen, who is unhappy with the fact that Christian Horner gets to keep his position in the team. After the first race, seeing the champion’s father talk to Toto Wolff, the rumors started popping up because of the instability in the team. But this is something that has currently been denied by both Toto Wolff and Max Verstappen under the pretense that the driver will not be moving to Mercedes, for now. And with the possibility of anything happening in F1, we might just see the star Red Bull driver move to the rival team.

Currently, there is no reason for the Dutchman to leave the team, as he has the best car on the grid under him and that’s all that he cares about. This fact has also been confirmed by Christian Horner himself, while he spoke to the media to clear out the rumors. But yet again, if Max Verstappen abandons Red Bull, the sport might get more competitive again, with a fairer chance for other drivers to win races.

But for Max Verstappen to leave Red Bull before his contract ends in 2028, Helmut Marko will have to leave the team. The 26-year-old contract states that if the Austrian leaves the team, he can decide to leave too. And that brings us to what Helmut Marko would do if he left Red Bull.

Helmut Marko’s stance in Red Bull

Helmut Marko has always supported Max Verstappen in his career and that won’t be changing now either. The 80-year-old director has been under threat of losing his job in the team due to his friction with Christian Horner. Currently, the team principal is still trying to figure out who was responsible for the conversation leak after the investigation was concluded. One of the figures that Horner has a strong suspicion of is Marko.

With constant pressure from the team and a principal who does not want to work with him, Marko might just leave the team after this season to join Ferrari. While it may seem odd for him to join Ferrari with Verstappen’s rival Lewis Hamilton, this would make things interesting as Ferrari has a large budget, and having the director will make things easier for their other plan in the background. If Marko leaves the team, this gives Verstappen a chance to leave the Red Bull in case the controversy affects his performance.

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And that brings us to the biggest star of the team, Adrian Newey, the mastermind behind the RB20. So where does he stand in all of this?

Adrian Newey’s Ferrari proposal

It looks like Horner is not happy having him on the team either, as there have been reports of the principal’s plans to move Adrian Newey to work on the RB17 Hypercar model. If this rumor is true, Newey will most probably walk out of the Red Bull’s exit door. John Elkann has already reportedly offered a ‘blank check’ to the master engineer to try to build a super team with Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc as the drivers and Newey’s designs along with Marko’s direction taking the team to win the 2025 Constructors’ Championship.

While it is still difficult for Ferrari to expect a win in the next year, considering the winning team Red Bull crumbles, this puts them in the direct spot for the championship taking. That being said, the silly season for 2025 has just started to get interesting and it will only get better because most of the drivers on the grids will need to find a contract.

With that, we would like to know your thoughts on the Red Bull situation. Will Christian Horner stay or be asked to leave by the team? And if he stays, do you think the team will disperse? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

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Editorial Disclaimer: The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of EssentiallySports.