Red Bull may not be giving up on hot talent Max Verstappen.<\/p>\n
The talented 16-year-old son of former F1 driver Jos Verstappen, in the midst of a meteoric switch from karting to junior single seaters, recently visited the paddock on the invitation of several formula one teams.<\/p>\n
Father and son sat down with the boss of Red Bull’s prolific driver development programme, Dr Helmut Marko, but reportedly ultimately decided to sign with Mercedes.<\/p>\n
Italy’s Autosprint said recently that Verstappen jr hopes to make the move to GP2 for 2015, but in the meantime could shortly make his F1 test debut.<\/p>\n
However, Italiaracing reports that the story of Verstappen’s dramatic arrival on the formula one radar may have taken a sharp twist at the weekend.<\/p>\n
As the Red Bull Ring hosted the latest F3 round, the Verstappens apparently had a “long meeting” with Marko.<\/p>\n
Austrian Marko, a high profile member of Red Bull’s premier world championship-winning F1 team, then joined the Verstappen camp on the F3 race grid.<\/p>\n
The upshot is that “Red Bull is willing to pay the (contract) penalty” to sign the young Dutchman to its programme, Italiaracing claims.<\/p>\n
And that’s not all.\u00a0 Marko has reportedly promised Max, who will be a mere 17 at the time of the 2015 season opener, his F1 race debut in a Toro Rosso next year.<\/p>\n
Verstappen would most likely take the seat currently occupied by Jean-Eric Vergne, who has been at Toro Rosso for three years but is being overshadowed in 2014 by the 20-year-old rookie Daniil Kvyat.<\/p>\n
It was believed Vergne’s seat would be filled for 2015 by another Red Bull-backed hotshoe, Carlos Sainz jr.<\/p>\n
As the ‘silly season’ shapes up, however, there are other possibilities.\u00a0 Perhaps Verstappen and Sainz will be paired at Toro Rosso, while Russian Kvyat moves to Red Bull Racing.<\/p>\n
“Daniil has been sensational so far,” Red Bull team boss Christian Horner is quoted by the Spanish sports daily AS.<\/p>\n
With McLaren pushing hard to sign a top driver like Sebastian Vettel, Red Bull could pair its on-form surprise of the 2014 season, Daniel Ricciardo, with Kvyat.<\/p>\n
Horner, however, played down the possibility of a driver change for 2015.<\/p>\n
“We have 100 per cent the best driver pairing in formula one,” he told Sport Bild.<\/p>\n
“Seb is comfortable with us, trusts us.\u00a0 He has won 38 races with us and you don’t forget that easily.<\/p>\n
“And I don’t think Seb actually wants to go somewhere else,” Horner insisted.<\/p>\n
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