What Is the Relationship Between a Four-Time World Champion Driver and Mercedes?
The story between Max Verstappen and Mercedes began in 2014, when Toto Wolff tried to bring the teenage prodigy into the Silver Arrows family. Max was rising fast, and every top team was watching him. Wolff saw the talent early and moved to start a relationship that could lead to Formula 1. However, there was a simple, hard fact in the way: Mercedes already had Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg under contract. With no race seat open, the plan needed patience, but patience is rare when a young driver is ready to jump.
Wolff has since looked back on that moment and explained how close it came. He said he had known the Verstappens for a long time, and that he and Jos Verstappen were from the same racing generation with similar experiences, so there was a natural rapport. In 2014, he sat down with Jos and Max to talk seriously about joining Mercedes. They wanted to do it, he said, but the team had no place on the grid to offer because of Lewis and Nico. The door was not closed, but it was not open wide enough.
So Wolff put a bridge on the table. The idea was a free F2 seat for Max for 2015, with a firm guarantee of stepping up to F1 the following year, which is 2016. If Mercedes could not deliver that promotion on time, Max would be free to leave, no strings attached. It was a respectful offer meant to protect the driver’s momentum while keeping him in the Mercedes orbit. Then Helmut Marko stepped in and changed everything, offering a full Formula One race seat straight away. Faced with an immediate F1 drive, the Verstappens chose Red Bull.
Years later, the two sides met again under very different circumstances. The 2021 title fight between Verstappen and Hamilton turned relations cold, and Wolff admits the rivalry “got out of control.” Emotions took over, each camp dug into its own point of view, and it became hard to see the other side. Wolff calls it a small crisis that needed time to cool. About a year later, in Singapore, he and Jos had an open, honest conversation, and since then, the relationship has been good again.
That thaw matters because Wolff has also said that a future partnership between Verstappen and Mercedes could be a matter of time. He knows how close they once were, and he knows why it slipped away: timing and seats. In 2014, Mercedes could offer a plan but not a cockpit; Red Bull could offer a cockpit, and that settled it. Today, the respect is rebuilt, the lines of communication are clear, and both sides remember how near they came to working together. Whether it ever happens is unknown, but the missed chance and the calm after 2021 are now part of their shared history.
