Mercedes 'Offered' Verstappen but Didn’t Want Him

Ralf Schumacher claims Mercedes did make a behind-the-scenes move for Max Verstappen, but says the proposal was never designed to seriously take him from Red Bull because the terms were too weak to tempt him.

Speaking on the Backstage Boxengasse podcast, former F1 driver Ralf Schumacher said Verstappen’s options are limited, with Ferrari not available and Mercedes only making what he described as an unattractive approach. “There’s no spot at Ferrari right now,” Schumacher said. “And at Mercedes, you hear that Wolff has made him an offer behind the scenes. But that offer was apparently so bad financially that it’s not an option anyway.” He added that this is “apparently what’s going on behind the scenes right now.”

The more striking part of Schumacher’s theory was his claim that the offer was poor by design. He said he believes Toto Wolff acted intentionally because signing the “expensive Max Verstappen” alongside Kimi Antonelli would run against Mercedes’ longer-term interests.

Schumacher described Antonelli as “the next superstar if everything goes according to plan” and questioned why Wolff would want to complicate that rise by bringing in a far more expensive team-mate. In his view, that would risk creating the kind of internal fight Mercedes has spent years trying to avoid.

He pointed directly to the team’s Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg era as the warning. Wolff, Schumacher said, would end up with “two drivers on the team fighting each other,” before adding: “Above all, he’d be putting Kimi at risk. So that actually makes no sense at all.”

The claim comes against the backdrop of continued speculation over Verstappen’s future, with Mercedes having been linked to the Red Bull driver for some time and Wolff having publicly expressed interest last year.

It also lands at a moment when Mercedes has less reason than ever to force a dramatic change. The team has won six of the first seven rounds this season and Antonelli is already in title contention, strengthening Schumacher’s argument that disrupting the line-up with a costly superstar signing would be a harder sell even if Verstappen became available.