The Verstappen story intensifies as his father and manager visit McLaren.

      New speculation surrounds Max Verstappen’s future after both his father Jos and manager Raymond Vermeulen were seen separately entering McLaren’s hospitality unit on Friday at Spa. These visits occurred just days after Vermeulen and Jos Verstappen met with the retired Red Bull advisor Dr. Helmut Marko in Amsterdam, fueling further conjecture regarding the quadruple world champion's future.

      A source close to the Verstappen camp clarified that the meetings with McLaren were strictly about the recently announced partnership between Verstappen.com Racing and 15-year-old McLaren junior Dries Van Langendonck. Nevertheless, the sightings have heightened speculation that Verstappen is still evaluating his options outside of Red Bull.

      F1 legend Niki Lauda’s son, Mathias, believes Ferrari should also be considered in this discussion. "Max is smart," he told Osterreich. "He thinks about his options and where he can find the best car for next year. Besides Red Bull, that only leaves Mercedes and Ferrari.

      "It's surprising that Ferrari hasn’t come up in the media thus far. If I were Ferrari, I would at least reach out to Verstappen. Max extracts so much performance from a car. There’s no one else like him in the field."

      When asked about Marko’s claim that both Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton can't be at Ferrari together, Lauda replied, "Who knows what Lewis will be doing next year? But maybe Red Bull is the best option for Max anyway. Evidently, their engine isn't too bad, and things can shift rapidly in F1."

      On the track at Spa, Verstappen seemed optimistic despite expressing frustration over gearbox shifts during Friday practice. "The car is in a pretty decent window," he remarked afterward. "In FP2, I believe the real differences were evident, but that was expected, and it’s not concerning. The balance was also quite good."

      Red Bull has reverted to its previous rear wing following the reliability issues it faced with its innovative 'Macarena' design. Technical director Pierre Wache noted that the revised version should be ready as early as next weekend in Hungary. "It needs to be prepared for Budapest," he stated. "We’ve already demonstrated to the FIA what we’ve done and how we will rectify it. Now, we’re proceeding cautiously. We don’t want to take risks - we need to be completely sure."

      When asked if the issue was related to the wing’s activation mechanism, Wache smiled and said, "That has something to do with it. Sorry, but I can’t go into detail about what we’re doing since that’s part of the advantage of that wing. It gives additional speed by using that wing."

      Ferrari's boss Frederic Vasseur, on the other hand, asserted that his team’s similar concept has not faced the same problems. "It doesn’t operate the same way," he said. "We had no issues. We were a bit slower initially, which is why we didn’t implement the wing for the first two or three races. After race four, we started using it in races."