Aston Martin are telling potential sponsors that Max Verstappen will join them in their ambitious bid to win the Formula One world title, in a £1billion deal that would be one of the biggest in the history of sport.
The four-time world champion’s contract could be worth up to that extraordinary figure across the remainder of his career, including signing bonuses and almost certainly equity in the Silverstone-based team.
Mail Sport has been told that Jefferson Slack, a close lieutenant of Aston Martin’s Canadian billionaire owner Lawrence Stroll, has recently made pitches to potential investors claiming that the 27-year-old Dutchman will be joining them. That is a firm desire rather than a certain fact, for now. Verstappen has stated within the last few weeks that he would ideally see out his illustrious career at Red Bull, where he has wrought all his successes and is contracted until 2028.
But Verstappen’s outstanding talent marks him out as the single commodity all team bosses would most dream of enlisting — not least a serial winner in business such as the fashion mogul Stroll.
Verstappen currently earns £50m a year and only seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton, who starts at Ferrari this year, can match that figure — potentially exceeding it when bonuses are added on. It would take serious money to prise away the sport’s top driver — perhaps £200m a year. Verstappen is the only man in the sport who can practically name his price.
Aston Martin have been in casual contact with the Verstappen camp, though mostly concerning their endurance racing programme. The Verstappens are likely to keep an open mind for now, weighing up how the new Red Bull-built, Ford-backed engine fares under new regulations that come in next year.
Aston Martin are telling potential sponsors that Max Verstappen (pictured above) will join them in their ambitious bid to win the world title, in a £1billion deal
The four-time world champion’s contract could be worth up to that figure across the remainder of his career and would almost certainly include equity in the Silverstone-based team
Mail Sport has been told that Jefferson Slack, a close lieutenant of Canadian billionaire owner Lawrence Stroll (above), has recently made pitches to potential investors
A source with knowledge of the situation said of Slack, Aston’s managing director, commercial and marketing: ‘Jefferson, or Jeff as others know him, has been going around saying Max will be joining Aston Martin. It may be a ploy, adding extra value to the deal he wants to do, but bringing Max in also makes perfect sense.
‘They have signed Adrian Newey on £20million a year as the greatest car designer of all time, and Lawrence won’t let that be the extent of it. He wants to win the world title and he won’t let anything stand in his way. He wants to end the dominant era headed by Christian Horner (at Red Bull) and Toto Wolff (at Mercedes).
‘Adrian is believed to think Lance Stroll (son of owner Lawrence) is not a good enough driver. And that Fernando Alonso, being 43, is too old. They gave Adrian a shareholding to get him over from Red Bull and could do the same with Max.’
Asked for a response, an Aston Martin spokesman ‘firmly’ denied Slack had made approaches based on Verstappen joining them.
The spokesman underlined that Stroll Jnr and Alonso have contracts for this year and next.