Aston Martin goal Max Verstappen in £1BILLION deal for Red Bull’s four-time world champion to show Formula One on its head – after signing up £20m-a-year star designer Adrian Newey

Aston Martin are telling potential sponsors that Max Verstappen will join them in their ambitious bid to win the world title, in a £1billion deal that would be one of the biggest in the history of sport.

The four-time world champion’s contract could be worth up to £1billion across the remainder of his career and would almost certainly include equity in the Silverstone-based team.

Mail Sport has been told that Jefferson Slack, a close lieutenant of Aston Martin’s Canadian billionaire owner Lawrence Stroll, has recently made pitches to potential investors claiming that the 27-year-old Dutchman will be joining them.

That is a firm desire rather than a certain fact, for now. Verstappen has stated within the last few weeks that he would ideally see out his illustrious career at Red Bull, where he has wrought all his consecutive successes and is contracted until 2028.

However, Verstappen’s outstanding talent marks him out as the single commodity all team bosses would most dream of enlisting – not least a serial winner in business like the fashion mogul Stroll.

Verstappen currently earns some £50m a year. Only seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton, starting at Ferrari this year, matches that figure – potentially exceeding it when bonuses are added on. 

Aston Martin are telling potential sponsors that Max Verstappen (pictured above) will join them in their ambitious bid to win the world title, in a £1billion deal

The four-time world champion’s contract could be worth up to £1billion across the remainder of his career and would almost certainly include equity in the Silverstone-based team

Mail Sport has been told that Jefferson Slack, a close lieutenant of Canadian billionaire owner Lawrence Stroll (above), has recently made pitches to potential investors 

It would take serious money to prise away the sport’s top driver – perhaps £200million a year. Verstappen is the only man in the sport who can practically name his own price.

Aston Martin have been in casual contact with the Verstappen camp, though mostly concerning their endurance racing programme. 

The Verstappens are likely to keep an open mind for now, weighing up how the new Red Bull-built Ford-backed engine fares under new regulations that come in next year.

A source with knowledge of the situation said of Slack, Aston’s managing director, commercial and marketing: ‘Jefferson, or Jeff as others know him, has been going around saying that Max is going to be joining Aston Martin. It may be a ploy, adding extra value to the deal he wants to do, but bringing Max in also makes perfect sense.

‘They have signed Adrian Newey on £20million-a-year as the greatest car designer of all time, and Lawrence won’t let that be the extent of it.

‘He has said he wants to win the world title, and he won’t let anything stand in his way. He wants to end the dominant era headed by Christian Horner (at Red Bull) and Toto Wolff (at Mercedes).

‘Adrian is believed to think that Lance Stroll (son of owner Lawrence) is not a good enough driver. And that Fernando Alonso, being 43, is too old.

‘Adrian is determined to make a success of himself yet again and wants to work with the best.

Aston Martin (general team pictured above with Brad Pitt) have been in casual contact with the Verstappen camp, though mostly concerning their endurance racing programme

Verstappen is the only man in the sport who can practically name his own price

‘They gave Adrian a shareholding to get him over from Red Bull and they could conceivably do the same with Max.’

Asked for a response, an Aston Martin spokesman ‘firmly’ denied that Slack had made approaches based on Verstappen potentially joining them. The spokesman underlined that both Stroll Jnr and Alonso have contracts for this year and next.