Max Verstappen admits he could WALK AWAY from F1 entirely when his deal with Red Bull expires in 2028... as battle between Christian Horner and his father, Jos, casts doubt over the World Champion's future

Triple world champion Max Verstappen has reiterated the possibility that he could walk away from the sport when his current deal with Red Bull expires at the end of the 2028 season.

The Dutchman has claimed two wins from the opening three races of the season despite finding himself caught in the crossfire of a bitter battle between team principal Christian Horner and his father, Jos, ever since allegations of Horner’s inappropriate behaviour towards a female colleague emerged on the eve of the 2024 season.

Horner denied the claims and has since been cleared in an internal investigation, though that failed to stop Jos from warning the team could be ‘torn apart’ if Horner remained in his role.

The furore casted doubt over Verstappen Jnr's immediate future at the team, particularly given that there will be a vacant seat at Mercedes following Lewis Hamilton’s switch to Ferrari for 2025.

While Verstappen insisted he was content with seeing out the remainder of his current contract at the Austrian outfit, the 26-year-old stopped short of committing to his plans beyond that.

‘I'm very happy where I'm at, and we want to keep it that way,’ said Verstappen.

‘I have a contract with Red Bull until 2028. 

'After that, I first want to see if I even want to continue.

‘That’s for me the most important (thing) - it's not so much about where. These kind of things, I don't really think about at the moment.’

Verstappen heads into this weekend's Japanese Grand Prix as the hot favourite to secure what would be his third win in Suzuka despite a brake issue forcing him to retire early from the Australian Grand Prix last time out.

Ferrari's Carlos Sainz went onto claim the chequered flag, ending the Dutchman's nine-race winning streak.

Verstappen, though, does not fear those reliability issues rearing their head again in Japan.

'We saw some signs on Saturday where things were maybe not looking how they should have done,' he explained.

'Now in hindsight you can say it was coming from the brake caliper. We couldn’t find any fault with the car which in a way, of course it’s always bad to retire, but when you have a fault in the build specification it's a bit worse.

'We’ll go from there and hope it doesn’t happen again, but it shouldn’t.'