As part of a recent The Race Members Club exclusive F1 Extra podcast, Ben Anderson answered a question about how different Formula 1 would look now had Toto Wolff succeeded over Red Bull in signing Max Verstappen in 2014. Now here's Ben's full written extrapolation of how the last decade of F1 would've turned out had that happened.
James Halford: Toto Wolff regrets not signing Max Verstappen for the 2015 season. Could you speculate, if he had, how the grid, teams and world champions' roll call would look?
The main reason Red Bull beat Mercedes to Max Verstappen’s signature in 2014 is because Helmut Marko offered Verstappen immediate promotion from Formula 3 to Formula 1 for 2015.
Toto Wolff was quite clear he had no lever to pull to get Max straight into F1 under Mercedes power. Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg were both under contract, and within Mercedes' customer teams McLaren was about to ditch Mercedes for Honda, Williams had Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa locked in, ditto Force India with Nico Hulkenberg and Sergio Perez.
But in an alternative universe where Verstappen anyway rejects Red Bull for Mercedes, he’s consigned to spending another season in the junior categories. Wolff said Mercedes was prepared to pay for Max to do GP2, and it’s reasonable to think he would’ve beaten McLaren junior Stoffel Vandoorne to the 2015 title.
This probably also means Jean-Eric Vergne’s F1 career continues for at least one more season, alongside rookie Carlos Sainz at Toro Rosso.
Mercedes placed Pascal Wehrlein at Manor for 2016, so it’s conceivable that Verstappen takes that seat instead off the back of GP2 title success - and is then so stunning in his rookie F1 season that Mercedes feels compelled to make room for him in its works team.
Handily, Nico Rosberg’s contract was up for renewal at this point. In reality, he signed a new two-year deal, which he then immediately broke by mic-dropping his way out of F1 as the newly-crowned 2016 champion!
Either Verstappen becomes Wolff’s obvious solution to that unexpected problem, or is lined up to replace Rosberg regardless - and so Rosberg elects to retire before signing that new deal.
So Verstappen joins Mercedes in time for the new rules of 2017, alongside Lewis Hamilton. Meanwhile, Red Bull turns to a Daniel Ricciardo/Carlos Sainz combination once it realises (at the end of 2016) that Sainz is a better long-term bet than Kvyat, who drops back down to STR so Red Bull can benchmark Pierre Gasly.
In this scenario there’s no need for Mercedes to pay $10million to extract Bottas from his Williams contract, so Bottas remains in place for 2017 - as team-mate to rookie Lance Stroll - while Massa retires as planned at the end of 2016.
If Renault anyway ditches Jolyon Palmer before the 2017 season ends, Sergey Sirotkin probably makes an early F1 debut there before switching places with Bottas for 2018.
I see Bottas probably having the Renault career Daniel Ricciardo had, and staying there longer than Ricciardo did too, but starting one season earlier.
Meanwhile, Hamilton likely wins the 2017 title - but finds Verstappen an increasing threat as the season wears on. I reckon Max probably beats Sebastian Vettel to second in the points.
The 2016-18 version of Verstappen at Red Bull was often criticised for being overly-aggressive and hot-headed on track, but it’s worth remembering the power disadvantage he endured compared to Mercedes and Ferrari back then.
In a class-leading Mercedes, I suspect he plays the percentages much better and therefore enjoys more success without the need to take so many outlandish risks to get there.
The 2018 season becomes pivotal to the timeline. I suspect Verstappen might beat Mercedes team-mate Hamilton to this championship, simply because I can see him winning marginal races early on in the season, like Bahrain, China and Canada, that Bottas didn’t win, and not crashing in Australian Grand Prix qualifying or getting nerfed by Vettel at the start of the French GP.
I think Verstappen would take points off Lewis that Bottas didn’t, the Vettel/Ferrari combination probably still suffers its second-half-of-the-season collapse, Verstappen certainly doesn’t get ordered to play ‘wingman’ in Russia (or flat-out refuses anyway!) and that whole situation inevitably implodes - perhaps even with an on-track clash between Verstappen and Hamilton.
Hamilton’s contract is anyway up at the end of 2018 and I see him joining Ferrari in place of Vettel - whose three-year deal is also up anyway and so he is booted out for not winning the title in either ‘17 or ‘18. Charles Leclerc is promoted from Alfa Romeo in place of Kimi Raikkonen, so Hamilton and Leclerc become Ferrari team-mates, just six years earlier than in reality.
But what happens to Hamilton’s vacated Mercedes seat? I’m sure by this point, disillusioned with McLaren (and F1) as he was, Fernando Alonso would offer himself up. Vettel, too. But emboldened by the successful experiment with Verstappen, I suspect Wolff would feel no need to play the driver market conservatively and so George Russell gets dropped straight in at Mercedes for 2019 rather than serving a three-year apprenticeship with Williams.
This probably extends Sirotkin’s F1 career by another season, and leaves Vettel washing up at McLaren - where he’s eventually obliterated by Lando Norris and replaced by Oscar Piastri.
I see Verstappen adding the 2019, 2020 and 2021 championships to his 2018 success - with 2021 featuring none of the controversy it did in reality, because there’s simply no way Ricciardo or Sainz are able, in that Red Bull, to push Verstappen as hard as Verstappen pushed Lewis.
In fact, they probably take too many points off each other to deny Verstappen. But there’s a good chance Red Bull-Honda beats Mercedes to the constructors’ title while Russell is learning on the job.
I also don’t see Ricciardo or Sainz forcing each other out of that team.
Red Bull keeps trying to sign Verstappen but can’t get him. It thinks about promoting Gasly but decide stability in its second team is best, so he and Alex Albon form a formidable midfield partnership before eventually becoming fed up with the lack of progression and defecting to Alpine and Williams respectively (Gasly replaces Aston Martin-bound Alonso to join Bottas at ‘team Enstone’ at the end of 2022, while Alonso replaces Sergio Perez).
And in 2022 it’s Red Bull that capitalises on the change of regulations to vault back to the top of the pile, only in this alternative reality it’s Sainz who beats Leclerc and Hamilton to the championship as Ricciardo struggles to adapt to ground-effect F1.
By this time Verstappen is furious with how uncompetitive Mercedes has suddenly become, but as luck would have it his second three-year contract is up for renewal at the end of the season anyway - so he jumps ship to Red Bull to replace Ricciardo and adds the 2023 and 2024 titles to his collection.
Ricciardo switches places with Max at Mercedes, but things don’t go well and he’s eventually replaced by ‘the next Verstappen’, some kid called Kimi Antonelli.
All of which leaves Verstappen as a six-time champion heading into 2025, with Hamilton stuck on four and ousted from Ferrari owing to his advancing years, the lack of a fifth title (just like Vettel!), and Leclerc’s increasing supremacy.
This triggers a merry-go-round similar to the one that actually happened in 2020, in which Sainz joins Ferrari, Piastri joins Red Bull and Hamilton returns ‘home’ to McLaren.
Alternative 2025 grid
McLaren: Norris/Hamilton
Ferrari: Leclerc/Sainz
Red Bull: Verstappen/Piastri
Mercedes: Russell/Antonelli
Aston Martin: Alonso/Stroll
Alpine: Gasly/Bottas
Haas: Bearman/Ocon
Williams: Albon/Colapinto
RB: Tsunoda/Lawson
Sauber: Hulkenberg/Bortoletto
