Red Bull boss Christian Horner has revealed that Lewis Hamilton was desperate to drive for the Austrian team in 2012 and 2013 but they refused to sign him up as they thought his partnership with Sebastian Vettel would not work.
Red Bull boss Christian Horner has revealed that Lewis Hamilton was desperate to drive for the Austrian team in 2012 and 2013 but they refused to sign him up as they thought his partnership with Sebastian Vettel would not work. Instead, to weaken McLaren, he asked Mercedes to sign-up the British driver. At that time, Horner felt that McLaren was the tougher team to beat.
Red Bull team boss Christian Horner
“He was desperate to drive for the team. In 2012, he wanted to come and drive for us, but there was no way we could accommodate him while Sebastian was with us,” Horner said. “Then before he signed for Mercedes, he was very keen to drive for Red Bull for 2013. The McLaren had been very competitive in 2011 and 2012 and I thought it would probably be better for us for him to be at Mercedes than McLaren. So in the event of us not being able to sign him, I encouraged Niki Lauda to sign him to weaken McLaren – not envisaging that Mercedes would become the absolute powerhouse they are today.”
Lewis Hamilton
Hamilton left McLaren at the end of 2012 and since then the Woking based team has been going down. The 2015 season was one of their worst. Red Bull are also having a down trend. Meanwhile, Mercedes is dominating most of the races with Lewis Hamilton at the wheel. Of the last 38 races, only six have not been won by Hamilton or his team-mate, Nico Rosberg. He won the Driver’s championship for two consecutive seasons, in 2014 and 2015. During both the years, the team clinched the Constructors Championship by a huge margin to spare.
Source – Sky Sports