The motorsport world is waiting with bated breath for Fernando Alonso and Max Verstappen to decide their Formula 1 futures, as the two world champions are pipped as the first dominoes that need to fall to kick off a raft of driver transfers ahead of 2027.
While there is no guarantee that either party will leave their current teams, any move would be a shock to the F1 system in a relatively stable driver market.
If the Dutchman were to jump ship and leave Red Bull, it would mark a monumental upset to rival some of the most shocking transfers in F1 history. Here are 10 moves that proved to be similarly seismic.
2025: Lewis Hamilton to Ferrari
Lewis Hamilton was Mercedes’ golden boy. He’d raced with Mercedes power since his entry into F1, had joined the team in 2013 and went on to cement his place as the most successful F1 driver in history after clinching six titles with the Silver Arrows.
Then came F1’s ground-effect era in 2022 and the team’s performance fell off a cliff. A controversial aerodynamic concept saw Mercedes tumble from the top, and Hamilton endured his first winless season in F1 in 2022. The downturn in form, a short contract extension with the team and Hamilton’s dream of racing in red led to a shock move.
Days before Mercedes had even unveiled its 2024 car, Hamilton made the surprise announcement that he would be moving to Ferrari for 2025. It caught paddock insiders, experts and fans off guard, with many expecting the Briton to see out his F1 career with Mercedes. Instead, he fulfilled a lifelong dream of racing for the Scuderia, and has since returned to the top step of the podium.
2019: Daniel Ricciardo to Renault
Daniel Ricciardo was widely expected to be Red Bull’s next star after Sebastian Vettel left following his four world titles. And the Australian showed flashes of brilliance at the team, notching up seven race wins and finishing as high as third in the F1 standings.
However, his position at the top of the Milton Keynes team came under fire with the arrival of Verstappen in 2016, and the Australian was outscored by the Dutchman in 2018. By then, rumours of favouritism towards Verstappen were already swirling, so Ricciardo began assessing his options outside Red Bull.
The prospect of racing for a works team, a fresh environment and a bumper pay packet combined and led the Australian to sign for Renault for the 2019 season. The move was met with widespread shock, as Red Bull was a top-three team and regularly scrapped for wins with Ferrari and the dominant Mercedes. Renault, meanwhile, was firmly in the mid-field and stuck in a rebuilding period.
2013: Lewis Hamilton to Mercedes
Before his bumper move to Ferrari, Hamilton made another shock switch when he left the team that had brought him into Formula 1: McLaren.
The Briton came up through the F1 feeder series with support from McLaren and made his debut with the team in 2007. He had a record start in F1, winning four races in his debut season and finishing the year in second. The following year, he won the whole thing.
After four less glowing seasons, Hamilton decided it was time for a fresh start and announced he was joining Mercedes. But this was an unrecognisable Mercedes team compared with today’s outfit, and it had won just one race since its return to the series in 2010. However, Hamilton was banking on F1’s rule change in 2014, and his partnership with the Silver Arrows would help him become one of the championship’s most successful drivers in history.
1999: Jacques Villeneuve to BAR
After winning the Formula 1 drivers’ championship in 1997 in only his second season in the series, Williams driver Jacques Villeneuve was flying high in the late 90s. However, a falter in form for the team that earned him a maiden F1 win and a resurgent challenge from McLaren left him longing for pastures new.
Villeneuve was reportedly offered a drive at McLaren for the 1999 season, but instead opted for pastures that were really, really new: British American Racing. The team was formed from the ashes of Tyrrell and led by Craig Pollock – who was Villeneuve’s manager. At the time, the French-Canadian was hoping to build the team around himself as he sought greater success in F1, but that didn’t quite work out.
In his first season at BAR, he retired from 12 races out of 16 rounds, and could only muster a best finish of eighth in Italy. A year later, the results didn’t improve much and he managed a handful of top-five finishes. Villeneuve later re-signed with the team in 2002, but has since admitted this is one of his few regrets in F1.
1997: Damon Hill to Arrows
Damon Hill was another driver to pick up a world championship with Williams and then make a rogue move to the back of the grid. For the Briton, that was with a move to Arrows for the 1997 season just after clinching the crown in 1996. However, the reason for the transfer wasn’t quite so clear-cut.
Hill had a stellar start to the 1996 season with Williams, winning four of the opening five grands prix and building on the momentum that saw him finish second in 1994 and 1995. However, rumour has it that Williams never really wanted Hill to be its team leader, and a slew of off-the-cuff remarks from the Briton about his performance and pay left a bad taste in the Williams bosses' mouths early in the 1996 season.
As such, it jumped at a couple of errors Hill made early on, and elected not to renew his contract for the following year. Hill went on to win the title, and was left with few options for a drive by the end of the season – landing with Arrows for a single year in 1997.
1996: Michael Schumacher to Ferrari
The transfer that led to one of the most successful partnerships in F1 history saw Michael Schumacher move to Ferrari for the 1996 season. Now, moving from plucky squad Benetton to the Italian powerhouse seems obvious, but at the time it came as a surprise to many.
With Renault’s impending exit from F1, Benetton was about to lose its engine supplier and Ferrari, which had finished no higher than third in the preceding five years, was in a rebuilding process. With Jean Todt at the helm, it had brought in new technical bosses and was hoping for a star driver who to build the team around.
In 1995, Schumacher was flying high. He had clinched his first championship and was well on the way to securing a second in just his fourth year in the series. Todt believed he was the missing piece who could help Ferrari return to the top and, after securing a technical team that could build the right car, set about signing the right driver.
Todt reportedly spent a day in Monaco convincing Schumacher to sign on the dotted line, and he did. The German would go on to win his first race in red at the 1996 Spanish Grand Prix, before claiming a further 71 victories and five world titles.
1991: Nigel Mansell to Williams
While Nigel Mansell was the last Ferrari driver to be personally selected by team founder Enzo Ferrari, the Briton’s stint at the Scuderia was short-lived – despite winning his debut race with the team.
Reliability issues, errors on track and even a race ban then hampered the remainder of Mansell’s first Ferrari season. And while he returned to the top step of the podium in his second year, the Briton still had a lacklustre time and ultimately scored fewer points in 1990. Off-track quarrels with team-mate Alain Prost and accusations that the pair weren’t competing in equal machinery led Mansell to announce his retirement from F1 altogether after dropping out of the British Grand Prix.
Those plans were cut short by Frank Williams, who practically moved mountains to get Mansell to sign for 1991. The Briton was given undisputed number-one status at the team, written guarantees of support from Williams and its suppliers, and a salary of £4.6million per season. The investment paid off, and after finishing second in 1991 he won the F1 title for Williams a year later.
1990: Alain Prost to Ferrari
Prost was a McLaren man. After starting his F1 career with Renault, he had moved to the British squad in 1984 and subsequently unlocked his full potential. A second-place finish preceded back-to-back world titles in 1985 and 1986, before he won his third at McLaren in ‘89.
However, Prost’s final two years with McLaren were dominated by drama with team-mate Ayrton Senna, who took a maiden crown in 1988 and fought hard against Prost in ‘89. Accusations of unsportsmanlike behaviour were exchanged, claims of dangerous driving were hurled around and from the Imola race (round two) the pair was not on speaking terms.
Midway through the season, Prost announced he was leaving McLaren for Ferrari in 1990, and even dropped his trophy from the Italian GP into the hands of the waiting Tifosi. The move sparked outrage, and there were even calls for McLaren to fire Prost so he could finish the season in red. This didn’t happen, and Prost clinched his crown after colliding with Senna in the penultimate race of the season.
1976: Emerson Fittipaldi to Fittipaldi
How many Formula 1 drivers can say they drove for a team that shared their name? Not many, and even fewer managed to find success while racing for their namesake teams. For Emerson Fittipaldi, the opportunity to drive for the family team came in the mid-70s when brother Wilson Fittipaldi created the only Brazil-based F1 team.
However, prior to joining the family team, the younger Fittipaldi had been driving for McLaren in F1. He had previously won the 1974 title with the team and finished second to Niki Lauda in 1975. But, at the peak of his F1 career, Emerson Fittipaldi shocked everyone and walked away from McLaren with the aim of chasing victory in a Brazilian team.
In total, Emerson Fittipaldi spent five seasons with the struggling outfit. In that time, he managed a best result of second in a chaotic 1978 Brazilian Grand Prix, and only picked up one further F1 podium finish.
1954: Juan Manuel Fangio to Mercedes
While Red Bull might have a reputation for switching drivers between its two F1 teams in the modern era, Juan Manuel Fangio was a pioneer of the mid-season swap. That’s because while dominating the 1954 standings, he made the shock move from Maserati to Mercedes after just two races.
After breezing to victory in Argentina and Belgium at the start of the 1954 season, Fangio jumped ship to Mercedes on the German brand’s entry into F1. The Silver Arrows dominated, and Fangio won four out of the six races that he entered with the team that year. He won the title, and followed it up with a second crown in 1955 – proving that the mid-season switch was very much worthwhile.
