Max Verstappen to McLaren? Johnny Herbert believes Woking is the ideal destination. Johnny Herbert believes McLaren could become the ideal destination for Max Verstappen.

Max Verstappen still the king of the transfer market

The sudden departure of Gianpiero Lambiase from Red Bull has reopened – earlier than usual – the ongoing wave of rumours surrounding Max Verstappen’s future. As a result, and partly due to a less-than-ideal period for the Milton Keynes-based team, which is reportedly more limited by chassis performance than engine power, the latest widely discussed scenario is no longer a move to Mercedes, but instead a potential transfer to McLaren in Woking, where the Dutch world champion could reunite with his trusted race engineer, who is expected to leave Red Bull at the end of 2027.

This is a hypothesis that also appears to interest Johnny Herbert, who spoke about it during an interview with Vision4Sport.

Future at mclaren, according to Johnny Herbert

“The race engineer is always a fundamental figure,” explained the former British driver, “in the link between the cockpit and the outside world, and Max has already said in the past how important it is for him to have someone at the pit wall he can trust. That is what Verstappen and Lambiase have at the moment, a very strong relationship, they exchange a few jokes on the radio and that shows how much they can bring the best out of each other. And with all of that, I would be very surprised if they did not want to work together again.”

For this reason, the McLaren track for Verstappen has once again become relevant after the Dutch driver himself had previously somewhat dismissed Zak Brown’s team in recent years.

“It is a logical choice, given the potential McLaren had at least up until last year. Now you can see what they are producing at the moment, and it could be the right place to go because they seem capable of becoming dominant again in the future. So it would seem like a perfect solution for him. I still believe that negotiations with Mercedes went very far last season, and he did well, but he was smart to give himself a year to understand how things stand.”

“Now though, with Lambiase leaving in 2027, the situation has changed for Max Verstappen,” concluded former F1 driver Johnny Herbert.