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Piastri to Red Bull? F1 legend casts doubt on "peace at McLaren" claim
Emily Benammar • July 3rd, 2026 10:48 am
McLaren and Red Bull have tried to hose down speculation linking Oscar Piastri and Max Verstappen with a team swap for 2027 - so why is the rumour so relentless?
Both drivers are currently contracted until 2028, but as history would show us, signatures mean very little in a sport as fickle as Formula One.
McLaren boss Zak Brown is adamant both his drivers are happy as can be and that he would only look into signing Verstappen if he had a third car or someone “slipped on a banana peel”.
Red Bull meanwhile insist that Verstappen has pledged his allegiance to the team through to the end of his current deal.
So why are we still hearing whispers from the paddock that this swap could go ahead?
There’s the obvious reason of Verstappen’s engineer Gianpiero Lambiase joining the papaya in 2028 and that he would follow. Then there’s the remnants of the alleged fallout between McLaren and Piastri after the “preferential treatment” saga of season 2025.
While far too much PR has been done to try and stop the "fallout narrative", former driver turned Sky pundit Jenson Button has questioned whether life at McLaren in 2026 is as peaceful as is being portrayed.
“Do they have peace at McLaren? I’m not sure about that,” Button said when asked about why Brown might want to “disrupt the peace”.
“It’s a really tricky situation for someone like Zak.
“Both drivers have contracts, first of all, so a driver’s got to want to leave. Maybe that’s the case. Maybe one of them does want to leave. Maybe they want to try somewhere else, racing in a different team.
“But trying to get rid of one of the two drivers that were fighting for the world championship last year, that’s a tall ask.
“I understand how good Max is. He’s a four-time world champion, and he can do things with cars that most of us can only dream of. But you still don’t know when he goes to McLaren, if he’s going to fit within that team.
“He’s only ever been at Red Bull, so it’s going to be a very different environment.
“And why change something that seems to be working at McLaren, having two drivers that have won races and were both fighting for the championship until the last race last season. It’s a tough one to call, really is.”
Piastri’s season got off to a disastrous start as he failed to make the grid for the first two races. He has since redeemed himself to a degree with two podiums in eight races but he is yet to secure a victory.
He is one point ahead of teammate Lando Norris in the drivers’ championship but with Mercedes winning all but one race this season, their hopes of challenging g for the title are slim.
When asked about Piastri’s future and the rumours of Verstappen, Brown said: “Well, I’ve got two awesome racing drivers, so if I had a third car, I would sign him in a heartbeat.
“But I don’t have a third car, so I couldn’t be happier with Lando and Oscar. We won 14 races last year, two drivers who came down to the last race of the year with the chance to win the championship.
“They get along great; they set a great tone in the garage. So, I’m not making any driver changes; if you ever were, I think I said at the weekend, if someone slips on a banana peel.
“Max is an awesome talent, but I think Lando and Oscar have both demonstrated they can beat him straight up.”
