Riccardo Patrese Interview: Why Max Verstappen Stayed at Red Bull

I think Lando is a much better driver this year. He seems more relaxed and he's more confident. He knows that he can win and because of that he's doing a very good job. In the last two races I think he was absolutely the best.

McLaren is coming back too, so the combination between them is getting stronger.

Mercedes is the favourite of course, but there is a long way to go still this season. We know from experience last year when he was a long way behind Oscar that Lando was able to catch him and become champion.

So, you never know. But, at the moment, Antonelli is the strongest candidate to be world champion.

The beginning of the season for F1 was a disaster. Now things have settled down, changes have been made and now there is more equality in the performances with three teams, Mercedes, McLaren and Ferrari who can all win races.

It is going to be a very exciting second half of the season and we'll see some brilliant races.

But as for the world championship, it will be very difficult to beat Antonelli because he has a good margin of points and he's not making mistakes, he's driving with his head.

Reliability can be a factor too, but looking at things now, Antonelli is the favourite for the championship.

Piastri has lost momentum which is a carryover from the end of last season. He is not driving as well as he can or should be. He knows he will not be able to challenge for the championship this year. So, he has a lot of aggravation inside him.

He is generally angry with the world. When you have internal aggravation, it is very difficult to compete or have the enthusiasm to race well.

He doesn't have the pace because his morale is so low. That makes a lot of difference in performance. Because of that he is not performing at his best.

It's very difficult for him to accept, I'm sure, but the fact is that Kimi is beating him at the moment.

You always think in your head that you can survive and get better, but at the moment the fact is that every time that when both cars are firing, Kimi is stronger than Russell.

I am sure. But he has to accept that he is a number 2. Everything else is closed. When there are movements, he could look to move because if he doesn't like being number 2 there, maybe somewhere else, he thinks he can be number one.

When all the speculation about Verstappen was in the air it could not have been easy for him. Max is a driver that everybody would like to have.

Even for Max, in the end, it was difficult to find a place without causing a revolution in another team with contracts having to be broken. So, from that point of view and also from the economic point of view, he said, 'OK, I'll stay in Formula 1. I have got a really good deal for four years.'

And maybe Red Bull will come good again next season. This year the rules were completely new, and everybody had to adapt to them. But next year, especially over this winter, every team can focus on the future and their programmes and maybe next year a team can be better than Mercedes in 2027. Red Bull could easily be one of them, which means Max will be able to win again.

It's very good for them. Last year there was a big revolution in the team and so many people left.

Now there is the new team principal, Laurent Mekies, who is doing a good job.>

Now Max is staying, which will bring stability and bring in sponsors, I am sure.

When you have the money, that helps to make a good car!

So, to have Max on board for them was important.

Personally, I'm very happy that he stays in Formula 1 because you need Max in the sport. He is too good.

He probably could have an option elsewhere if he had pushed it, even though other teams had said they had confirmed their drivers. It would have caused a fight. But if Max had said to Mercedes or McLaren that he wanted to come, they would find a place for him, whatever the cost, because no one can say no to Verstappen.

But he knew it would cause a lot of aggravation, and in the end it was not something he wanted, it seems.

He has been at Red Bull for a long time and as he says it is like his home. He has shown that he can make a difference even with a car that is a little bit inferior.

But I also think that money made a difference. I heard they have paid really a lot of money for him to stay for four more years.

So, money was also an important factor.

Nobody knows precisely because, you know, nobody can read Max's contract. But here in Italy they say USD$100m a year.

So, in four years he has USD$400m. This is a factor that probably Max considered and for sure made up his mind to sign the new contract with Red Bull.

That is a lot of money, but we know that with Liberty Media now controlling the sport and being so successful, teams have a lot more money.

They cannot spend it on the car because of budget caps, but they can on securing the best driver.

It was a sad way to finish there in his home Grand Prix. But it showed that Max is human after all because he made a mistake.

But knowing Max, he would not have wanted to finish fourth or fifth in Holland. So, he went for it to try to get onto the podium. There is more glamour in crashing out like that.

Not really. It had not changed much since my era. To be honest, I think it is very difficult to overtake, it is very narrow, and also the facilities and the paddock and the pits are very old.

It is not fit for modern Formula 1.

I was there, I think in 2021 because my son Lorenzo was racing and really the paddocks were as they were in 1970. Very poor quality.

I don't think anything else will happen unless, of course, there is a bad crash.

At the moment I think the drivers, apart from maybe at the secondary teams like Haas who are talking about Rafael Camara maybe coming in, are fixed.

A driver like Carlos can always help the team because he has experience and he is quick.

It is a question of motivation because when you are down it can be difficult to maintain that motivation and enthusiasm.

But that is what a good team leader has to have. The fact that things are bad means you have to work even harder to try to keep the morale up and give the right advice on how to fix it.

But now it is more difficult for a driver to fully understand what is going on technically because it's so complicated.

You cannot rely on instinct and feelings anymore to make adjustments. But at least from the motivation point of view of the team, it's very important to have a driver like Carlos.

I think his time is over. He wasn't bad but Hadjar and Lindblad are better than Tsunoda. There is no point going back to Tsunoda in one of the four seats that they have because the drivers they now have are better than him.

Yes, I think so, but you will have to wait until next year.

At the beginning of the season, everybody was really throwing a little bit of crap at Adrian Newey. But the problem was more the engine than the car.

He can't build engines. He is an aerodynamic person. And knowing Adrian, he is for sure trying very hard to prove a point. And the car is improving. At least now it's not four seconds slower than the others. But if we want to see the real Aston Martin, probably, we have to wait for next year.

As I have said, during this year many teams are harvesting information, then they solve the problems over the winter and next year that they cannot solve in ten minutes. They need a little bit of time.

Since the beginning of this season, I have said Antonelli has to win the championship this year because maybe next year is not the same.

Next year, maybe Ferrari is a top car, Aston Martin is a top car. Red Bull. Who knows?

Honda will obviously be working on things to improve the engine. We know they can build a winning engine. In the past, they have shown they can be absolutely unbeatable. So maybe they come back next year with a fantastic engine.

It is good news, and it is also good news for Lawrence Stroll; at least he can breathe a little bit of fresh air!

To have somebody like that come in on the project can be a release of tension.

Stroll has proved that he's a person who really would like to win. He probably cannot win with his son because I don't think he's at the top level of drivers.

But he would like to have a car that can give him wins, and maybe a championship at the end of it all.

Alonso is always stronger. He's a bit like Lewis; if he has a winning car even if he is more than 40, he can win. We know that he can be very competitive.

I agree with him. The sport is not just for passionate motorsport fans. Drive to Survive has brought a whole new set of fans. Liberty has a fantastic media strategy, which is a big part of their business success. The whole show is fantastic.

If they reckon they can do it and stay safe, then fine.

But this world is so crazy, with Mr Trump every day announcing a new thing, and sometimes what he says is so unbelievable; you never know what's going to happen tomorrow.

So, let's hope that, first of all, this war will end. I think it's crazy. The world is suffering because of this. Generally, wars are bad for humans, but we never learn the lessons from the past.

If you go and you look at that new movie that came out, Odyssey, it shows that the same issues from before Christ are still relevant today.

Humanity has never learned from the errors of past wars.