His teammate, Sergio Perez, also looked likely to leave the team after a poor 2023 season where he failed to match the pace of Verstappen.
Rumours suggested Red Bull would replace him with Daniel Ricciardo who arrived back at the team with Alpha Tauri, now VCARB, last season.
Perez discusses retirement plans
In an interview with the Athletic, the Mexican driver opened up about his struggles in F1, and his plans to retire.
“As I got married in my career, as I have kids, it’s something new and something that you start to know yourself a little bit more,” Perez said. “In the end, I find (it) really important to be able to disconnect from (F1).”
“Once you become a dad, you just realize that life is much more than Formula One, or at least it’s what happened to me. … It made me more human.”
“It is not like I’m bulletproof to it… I know that if I have a bad result on Sunday, I will feel it for many weeks.”
“I know that I’m not going to be here forever, but one of my inspirations is that my youngest son gets to see me racing. So (retirement is) not going to be any time soon.”