Why a Piastri Red Bull move would be a 'dumb idea'

Oscar Piastri’s management has denied reports the Aussie has activated a contract clause to leave McLaren at season’s end.

Rumours of a potential switch involving Max Verstappen and Piastri between Red Bull and McLaren have been simmering since as early as last October. But Brazilian motor sport website Grande Premio this week claimed the Melburnian had “signalled his desire” to leave the team, and was closing in on a Red Bull deal

The publication reported Piastri was set to activate a contract clause that would allow him to leave the team at the end of the season if he was not in the top five in the drivers’ standings by the mid-season break in two races time.

Verstappen is also widely believed to have a clause that would allow him to walk away from Red Bull if he’s outside the top two by the same time.

Piastri had a shocker last weekend at the British Grand Prix – he finished seventh in the sprint and 11th in the grand prix after an opening lap collision with the Racing Bulls of Liam Lawson. It dropped him to sixth in the standings, 97 points behind championship leader Kimi Antonelli and six points clear of Verstappen.

While Piastri could easily get back into the top-five, Verstappen is 78 points from second – a mathematical impossibility.

Piastri re-signed with McLaren on the eve of the 2025 season on a multi-year deal that will theoretically keep him in Papaya until the end of 2028. Both he and chief executive Zak Brown as recently as last week reconfirmed their intention to honour the deal.

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But the Verstappen rumours continue to rumble. The Dutchman is deeply unhappy at Red Bull, and has spun off the track in similar circumstances at each of the last two race meetings.

In the dying moments of qualifying in Austria, Verstappen spun at the ultra-fast second-last corner. Then late in the race at Silverstone, he again spun off the track at a high-speed right-hander at Stowe and had to be fished out of the gravel trap.

Both incidents are believed to be related to Red Bull’s so-called ‘Macarena’ rear wing, which rotates 180 degrees instead of lifting when opened. In both incidents, Verstappen appeared to lose the rear end moments after the wing closed, with suggestions the spins are to do with the ‘reconnection’ of the air flow after the wing closes.

“It’s super-dangerous because (I could have hurt myself) two times,” he said.

“I was lucky in Austria, I was lucky here. That’s why you get really fed up with it.”

That Verstappen is starting to speak out against his own team is a sign he has little if any faith they can even build a car he can rely on.

There is little doubt securing Verstappen would be a massive coup for McLaren, but his demands would no doubt go against the team’s core philosophy of fairness.

Since Daniel Ricciardo’s departure from Red Bull at the end of 2018, Verstappen has been the clear No.1 driver. McLaren famously do not have No.1 and No.2 drivers, and vow to treat each driver equally, even if it’s to their own detriment.

It seems incomprehensible a four-time world champion would not demand to be the No.1, and even more so McLaren giving in to his demands. Especially given his teammate, presumably, would himself be a world champion.

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And even if hell did wake up chilly one morning and McLaren did cave to Max and demote Norris to No.2 status, would such an upheaval of its own values and principals yield better results than it’s already achieving? It’s difficult to say yes.

Like Red Bull, McLaren has endured a difficult start to the season. Each driver has a second and a third place to their name, while Norris also led a McLaren 1-2 in the Miami sprint race.

The team is third in the constructors’ standings, a whopping 154 points adrift of Mercedes, and 78 behind Ferrari. Red Bull is 51 points behind.

At the same point last season, McLaren were 197 points clear of Ferrari, and had won seven of the nine grands prix.

It would make little sense for Piastri to leave McLaren. Despite their early season struggles, it’s a team probably still on the up. There is stability within its senior personnel, and Verstappen’s race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase will also join the team in 2028.

Red Bull meanwhile has also lost Adrian Newey and Christian Horner in the last two years, and are a team in crisis. There is also ongoing tension within Red Bull GmbH’s owners over the management of the team.

Having won all but one grand prix in 2023, the Milton Keynes squad just three years later is fighting to even break into the top-five.

Based on that, McLaren are far more likely to sort their proverbial and once again become contenders. A move away from that, even into a team where Piastri would be the clear No.1, would be a dumb idea.

But Mark Webber, Piastri’s manager, has proven before he can see opportunity where others cannot. He got Piastri out of his Alpine contract – albeit aided by some sheer incompetence – and he will know the details of the McLaren deal inside-out and back-to-front.

And, he’s still a popular figure among Red Bull GmbH executives.

The F1 circus is in the middle of a sting of four races in five weekends in the lead up to the mid-season break.

The season continues at the Belgian Grand Prix at the famed Spa-Francorchamps circuit on July 19.