Honda Slows Down Rumours of Verstappen's Aston Martin Move
Apr.15 - Honda has moved to play down bubbling speculation that Max Verstappen's next move in Formula 1 could be to Aston Martin.
In Bahrain, the quadruple world champion's patience with Red Bull appeared to fracture - and his manager Raymond Vermeulen was even seen in a testy exchange with Dr Helmut Marko.
"I believe Red Bull has a big problem if Max leaves," former F1 driver Felipe Massa told Viaplay.
"If he was driving for McLaren, the team would possibly win all the races in the championship."
McLaren, though, is clearly happy with Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri. Verstappen, on the other hand, is linked with Mercedes and Aston Martin in the event he can trigger a performance-related exit clause.
Mercedes now seems likely to re-sign George Russell for 2026.
"Aston Martin is mentioned a lot now," Dutch journalist Erik van Haren observes.
Part of the reason is that Adrian Newey is now working for Aston Martin - while another reason is recent comments made by Honda's F1 boss Koji Watanabe.
After Suzuka, he made clear he wants Verstappen to remain Honda-powered after 2025.
"I was asked 'Do you want to supply power units to Max?'," Watanabe now explains to as-web.jp. "So I just answered. Do you expect me to say 'No, we don't want to supply them?'
"I saw an article online that said Honda has a say in deciding Aston Martin's drivers, but that's already a given - the same goes for Red Bull. I wish they'd stop making short-sighted articles like that."
✅ Check out more posts with related topics:
I like how Watanabe responded to such a question & the aspect that Honda will have with Aston Martin what they've had with Red Bull through their supply stint is something he already mentioned before.
Of course, the relevant team/organization ultimately decides who drives for them & when, but Honda indeed has the right to voice their opinion on driver choices & will have the same with Aston Martin from next year onwards.
Lots of possibilities. Will Honda buy AM in the end and build the Am road car engines
The Irony of that situation would be that a cpl of years ago Honda closed down there uk car production facilities, but to buy AM, Honda are shooting themselves in the foot, the better there engine,and a winning AM just means them paying even more $$$$ for it
The business of F1 is an increasingly noisy place. There has never been more of this ridiculous speculation since Liberty Media took over.
It is so mind-numbingly frenetic. Even races suffer from the constant jibberish. Pit-wall cameos from the CEOs. Tight shots of a segment of the crowd.
Then there's Crusty prattling away about some dip-sh_t left-leaning conspiracy theory - while Brundle is valiantly booting him in the shins and giving insightful commentary - for a change.
Oh, and a race happened. Where is the singleness of purpose. FFS.
✅ Checkout the latest 50 F1 Fans comments.