A published 2027 Formula 1 grid forecast puts Max Verstappen in a McLaren — and the hiring trail at Woking suggests the prediction is building on something real. With a performance exit clause looming and Red Bull's engine stuck, the move is being treated as a contingency the paddock is actively planning around.
The forecast that landed on 14 April did what most paddock speculation pieces do not — it put its predictions on the record, seat by seat, team by team, for all 22 places on the 2027 Formula 1 grid. What makes the document worth the paddock's time is not the boldness of the call at the top. It is the paper trail beneath it.
The headline prediction is Max Verstappen leaving Red Bull for McLaren. Every other shift in the projected grid is described as a consequence of that single move. Seventeen of the 22 seats on the 2027 grid are formally unsigned. Lewis Hamilton's Ferrari deal is believed to expire at the end of this season. Christian Horner — fired by Red Bull last July — is fronting an investor group trying to buy into Alpine. Silly season has rarely had this many unanchored pieces at the same time.
What the forecast builds on is Verstappen's current situation, not a hunch. The four-time world champion sits ninth in the drivers' standings after three rounds, on 12 points, with zero podiums. He is 60 points behind the 19-year-old Kimi Antonelli, whose Mercedes has emerged as the clear benchmark of the new regulations. The Ford-built Red Bull power unit is not performing, and the consensus across the forecast's analysis is that engine development of the scale required cannot happen mid-season.
That matters because Verstappen's Red Bull contract — nominally valid through 2028 — contains a performance exit clause widely understood to activate if he is not inside the championship's top two by the summer break. At his current pace, the clause will be live before F1 even reaches its August shutdown.
If the clause activates, McLaren is the destination that adds up on paper. And the hiring trail at Woking is why that argument is now carrying weight.
On 9 April, McLaren confirmed Gianpiero Lambiase as its new chief racing officer. Lambiase has been Verstappen's race engineer across four title runs. He is the voice in Verstappen's ear at every qualifying session, every safety car, every strategic pivot of the last five seasons. The appointment takes effect no later than 2028.
Lambiase is not the only former Red Bull insider already at McLaren. Will Courtenay, who ran Red Bull's race strategy and pit stop calls during the title years, is in place as McLaren's sporting director. Rob Marshall, whose design fingerprints are on the cars Verstappen won those championships in, has been at Woking in a senior technical capacity since 2024. Three of the most important figures in Verstappen's professional life are already McLaren employees.
Verstappen reportedly gave his blessing to the Lambiase move. In McLaren's own public framing, the appointment was characterised as the icing on a cake that already had its ingredients in place. Read that framing alongside the forecast, and the implication is hard to miss — McLaren is preparing for a 2027 in which the car is engineered for a specific driver, and that driver is already committed in private even if the contract does not exist in public.
None of this guarantees the move. Verstappen has flatly rejected performance-clause speculation publicly before. Red Bull has a habit of rewriting contracts around Verstappen when his patience runs short. And the Ford engine, late as it is, does not have to stay this uncompetitive indefinitely.
What the April forecast shifts, though, is where the burden of proof sits. It is no longer speculative to argue Verstappen could leave. The question now is what keeps him. And on that question, the paddock no longer has an easy answer.
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*Originally published on [NewsFormula One](https://newsformula.one/article/verstappen-mclaren-2027-f1-grid-prediction-performance-clause-hiring-trail). Visit for full coverage.*