F1 2024

[Martini]

“So we gave Max a contract at the beginning of that year in 2018 to secure his future.”

“Daniel, I remember being upset at the time. He suddenly felt that ‘hang on, I don’t want to be the support act here.’ And I could tell he was starting to think of being a bigger fish in a smaller pond. He got a lot of noise in his ear and that this is the money that is also on the table [from other teams].”

“But I remember I spoke to to our owner Dietrich Mateschitz before the Austrian Grand Prix, and I said ‘it’s looking a bit marginal with Daniel, can you just show him some love? Because you know, Helmut [Marko], obviously very pro Max. But I think if you could just balance things out, just let him know that you want him.’”

“‘No problem. I’ll speak to him.’ So he took him upstairs after the race in Austria and they were gone for well over an hour and then they re-emerged, they reappeared both with smiles on their faces.”

“Dietrich comes up to me, I said ‘well, how did it go?’ And he said ‘no problem. It’s not even a question.’”

“I said: ‘Well, what did you agree with him?’ He said: ‘I said, we’ll give him whatever Max is on.’”

“I was like, ‘Wow, do you know what we pay Max?’ And so I gave him the number and he said ‘who the f**k agreed to that?’ And I said ‘Well, you?’”

“Then he was doing a test for us after the Hungarian race and it was like, Daniel will sign the paperwork on Monday. And suddenly Monday goes and he’s in the car on Tuesday. And I’m saying that I’m starting to smell a little bit of a rat here, because this is an enormous [contract], you’d have thought he’d have been in a rush to sign.”

“He didn’t sign it before he got in the car in the morning and then now he’s gonna sign it at lunchtime, and that didn’t happen. And then he’s had to get out the car and go straight to the airport because he’s flying here to LA. He’ll call you when he gets to LA.”

“So he rings me and he’s like ‘I’ve just got off the plane. I’ve been thinking on the flight on the way here. I’m not going to sign the contract. I’m going to take another contract.’”

“I was like ‘wow, okay, have Mercedes or Ferrari come through with something?’ And he went ‘no, I’m going to sign for Renault.”

“Because Daniel’s got a sense of humour, I was convinced he’s taking the piss here.”

“‘You’re not going to Renault, stop f**king about, just tell me when you are going to sign that contract.’ So after about 10 minutes, he finally persuaded me that he was gonna go to Renault and it was disappointing.”