As unlikely as it may seem, Valtteri Bottas and Sebastian Vettel teaming up at Red Bull Racing for the 2020 Formula 1 season is nowhere near impossible.
Aston Martin Red Bull Racing face the most uncertainty out of any of the 10 teams on the Formula 1 grid this Silly Season. Superstar Max Verstappen is not guaranteed to return to the team in the 2020 season and Pierre Gasly has struggled mightily in his first season with the team, giving them a tough decision to make as it pertains to either retaining him or replacing him.
Verstappen signed a three-year contract extension with the Milton Keynes-based team in October of 2017, but team manager Helmut Marko revealed earlier this year that he has a performance clause in his contract that would allow him to leave the team after the 2019 season if the team do not give him a car that is capable of winning this year’s championship.
Without revealing any specific details, Verstappen’s manager, Raymond Vermeulen, confirmed that there is, in fact, a performance clause in the contract of the 21-year-old Dutchman.
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Marko’s primary concern is that Verstappen will leave Red Bull Racing to drive for Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, the team that have dominated Formula 1 since the beginning of the V6 turbo hybrid era in 2014 and have won eight of the 21-race 2019 season’s first nine races.
Heating up this speculation was Max’s father Jos, a former Formula 1 driver himself, when he retweeted an article containing a statement by Marko expressing his concern.
With Verstappen’s future uncertain and Gasly having been rumored to be demoted back to Scuderia Toro Rosso, effectively the Red Bull Racing junior team where he spent the end of the 2017 season and the entire 2018 season, all eyes are on Red Bull Racing heading into what could turn into a disastrous Silly Season for them.
But even if Verstappen leaves the team, Gasly does not improve, and neither one of the two active Toro Rosso drivers, Daniil Kvyat and Alexander Albon, prove that they deserve a shot to drive for Red Bull Racing, all hope may not be lost for Red Bull Racing.
Could the team’s 2020 driver lineup consist of current Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas and current Scuderia Ferrari driver Sebastian Vettel, who previously drove for the team?
Bottas signed a one-year contract extension with an additional one-year option last July, so he is in a contract year at the Silver Arrows.
If Verstappen leaves Red Bull Racing, it would be to replace the 29-year-old Finn, so that would leave a seat open for Bottas at Red Bull Racing assuming he does not go to Ferrari, a possibility that would emerge if Vettel leaves the team since Charles Leclerc’s contract with Ferrari runs through at least the 2022 season.
With Red Bull Racing’s other options being limited, this could be an opportunity for Bottas to serve as the number one driver — or at the very least, not a number two driver — for a top-tier team after spending three seasons as the effective wingman for five-time and likely soon-to-be six-time Formula 1 champion Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes.
Vettel, meanwhile, signed a three-year contract extension with Ferrari in August of 2017, but he previously triggered clauses in his contract with Red Bull Racing to leave the team one year before his contract expired to join Ferrari ahead of the 2015 season. Him doing the same thing at Ferrari is not out of the question.
Red Bull Racing team principal Christian Horner recently offered high praise of Vettel, who won four consecutive championship for the team from the 2010 season through the 2013 season, and these comments, which included remarks that he visits the team quite often, fueled speculation that Vettel may be on his way back to the team after he has struggled this season with Leclerc applying more pressure on him to become Ferrari’s number one driver than Kimi Raikkonen ever did from the 2015 season through the 2018 season.
One current Mercedes driver and one current Ferrari driver leaving their respective teams to create a pairing at Red Bull Racing is not out of the question for the 2020 Formula 1 season, as unlikely as it sounds. Valtteri Bottas and Sebastian Vettel are both in position to make it happen if Max Verstappen leaves Red Bull Racing for Mercedes and Pierre Gasly gets demoted or cut by the team.