Is Verstappen Already Plotting His McLaren Move for 2027?

Paddock sightings are rarely proof of anything, but they are excellent at generating exactly the kind of speculation that gripped Spa this weekend. Raymond Vermeulen, Max Verstappen’s long-time manager, was seen entering the McLaren motorhome during the Belgian Grand Prix weekend — and when asked about it, Andrea Stella did not do what team principals usually do in these situations. He did not deny it, dismiss it, or wave it away with the usual stock line about focusing only on the championship in front of him. Instead, he gave an answer that managed to be both playful and, on reflection, rather revealing: that signing Verstappen would probably require McLaren to run a third car.

That is not a “no.” It is, at best, a very polite way of saying “we haven’t thought that far ahead” or, at worst, an acknowledgement that the idea has crossed minds inside Woking. Either way, it was enough to set the sport’s rumour mill spinning into life on a weekend when Red Bull’s competitive position and Verstappen’s contractual future were already under quiet scrutiny.

What’s Actually Happened

Strip away the speculation and the confirmed facts are modest: Verstappen’s manager was seen entering McLaren’s paddock base, and Stella, when pressed on whether his team could accommodate a driver of Verstappen’s stature, chose humour over denial. There is no confirmation of a meeting agenda, no suggestion of terms being discussed, and certainly no indication that a deal is close. This is the raw material of paddock intrigue rather than hard news.

But in Formula 1, optics matter almost as much as substance, particularly around driver markets. A manager’s visit to a rival team’s hospitality unit during a race weekend is the sort of thing that simply doesn’t happen by accident, and everyone in the paddock knows it. Whether it was a genuine exploratory conversation, a courtesy visit relating to unrelated business, or even a deliberate piece of theatre designed to unsettle Red Bull, the fact it was visible — and that Stella chose not to shut the story down — tells you this was allowed to breathe rather than suppressed.

Why It Matters

The context that makes this story combustible rather than trivial is Verstappen’s contract situation and Red Bull’s current trajectory. Verstappen has been F1’s dominant force for the past four seasons, but 2025 has been a more turbulent year for Red Bull as a constructor — the kind of unsettled internal picture that historically loosens even the most committed driver’s grip on loyalty. Contracts in Formula 1 are rarely as immovable as they appear from the outside; performance clauses, exit windows and gentleman’s agreements are commonplace, especially for a driver with Verstappen’s leverage.

McLaren, for their part, are no longer the plucky rebuilding project of a few years ago. They are a genuine championship-calibre operation again, with a technical and operational upswing that has made them a credible home for the very best. If Verstappen were ever to consider a move away from Red Bull, McLaren is one of perhaps two or three teams on the grid that could plausibly house him competitively for 2027 — the point at which new regulations reset the competitive order and contracts across the grid come up for renewal in a coordinated way.

That regulatory reset is crucial to understanding the timing. 2027’s rules changes represent exactly the kind of inflection point where drivers, teams and manufacturers reassess relationships. It is not a coincidence that speculation about a Verstappen move centres on that year rather than, say, next season. A switch mid-cycle would be disruptive and unusual; a switch timed to a new regulatory era is a much more conventional piece of F1 chess.

The Wider Context

Stella’s “third car” comment deserves closer reading, because it hints at a genuine logistical obstacle rather than just a throwaway joke. McLaren currently run two highly competitive drivers under contract, and slotting in a talent like Verstappen would mean either displacing one of them or lobbying for a third entry — something the sport’s current entry structure doesn’t straightforwardly allow without regulatory and commercial complications. Stella’s remark, whether intended as humour or not, quietly acknowledges that accommodating Verstappen isn’t simply a matter of desire; it’s a structural puzzle.

This is also a paddock with a long history of manager visits, whispered meetings and half-denials that later prove to be nothing more than noise. Driver markets thrive on exactly this kind of ambiguity, and teams have long understood the value of neither confirming nor denying — it keeps rivals guessing, keeps a team’s own driver line-up motivated, and costs nothing in the short term. Stella, an intelligent and media-savvy team principal, will have known precisely what effect his answer would have.

GP Headlines’ Take

Treat this for what it is: a genuinely interesting data point, not evidence of an impending seismic shift. Managers visit rival garages for all sorts of reasons, and team principals decline to issue flat denials for all sorts of reasons too — sometimes strategic, sometimes simply because an unequivocal “no” is harder to walk back later than a joke about a third car.

What makes this story worth taking seriously, rather than dismissing outright, is the confluence of circumstances: a driver of Verstappen’s stature, a team in Red Bull whose 2025 form has raised legitimate questions, a rival in McLaren clearly ascendant, and a 2027 regulatory reset that gives any such move a logical landing point. None of that confirms a deal. But it does explain why a single paddock sighting and one unguarded answer were enough to dominate a Saturday in Spa — and why this is a story the paddock, and Red Bull in particular, will want resolved rather than left to simmer.