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A lot of speculation around
Max Verstappen's future.

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A huge statement from Red Bull.

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It is, yes.
I mean, there were murmurings about this

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contract extension last night.

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We had a little up it would
be revealed this morning.

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Almost caught us on the hop, but Anthony
Davidson and Karun Chandhok, you've gotta stay

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up all night if you're gonna catch
us out on breaking news like this.

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But, I don't Karun, I'll ask you first.

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Are you surprised or not that not just
Max seeing out his contract, but actually

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extending it till 2030?

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I'm a little bit surprised at the length.

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I'm not surprised that he's committed to them.

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I, I thought it would be till the end of '28.

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I thought it'd be another
two years, to be honest.

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The fact he's gone for four shows that he
obviously believes in the, in the long-term

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feasibility of the project.
I mean, you'd have to say this year they've

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had probably the fourth
fastest car at a lot of races.

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He sits sixth in the
Driver's World Championship.

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That's not where Max wants to be, but clearly
they've convinced him that the long-term

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potential is better than this year's gonna be.

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Yeah.
Is he also a little bit boxed in, Anthony, in

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terms of maybe having limited options, partly
because of the, the incredible eruption of

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this talent of Kimi Antonelli at Mercedes, and
we always linked Max with a move to Mercedes

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with Toto Wolff?

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Yeah, potentially.
I know we always want, a lot of, you know, a

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good story in Formula 1, a bit of upset maybe,
and it looked at some point it was gonna be a

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great silly season with lots of drivers
moving around, and Max was gonna

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be the instigator of that.

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Talks of him moving to McLaren, kicking Oscar
Piastri out of his seat potentially, and then

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maybe talks going to Mercedes, and then
you look at George Russell or Kimi looking

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vulnerable there, and it
would've created a massive story.

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But it turns out it's not so much of a silly
season after all, so, yeah, back to, back to

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the drawing board.
A, a bit like Karun, you think there's enough

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signs that Max can look at with Red Bull at
the moment to, to, to make this less of a

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gamble with the likelihood of him
still being able to fight at the front?

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Well, if you just look at the last two
Grand Prix, he's had He had two podiums.

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So, straight away the team has got momentum.

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That's what it was always gonna
take for Max to stay where he is.

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He wanted to see improvements with the team.

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A brand new power unit for this year,
making their own engine at Red Bull.

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I mean, it's incredible stuff when you think
where they've come from this time last year.

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So he wanted to see improvement
from the power unit side of things.

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He wanted to see improvements from the team,
and I feel like from where they've started

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this season to where they are now, if you look
at that trajectory, that's probably what he's

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buying into