By Joe Murphy
Sebastian Vettel has admitted that Formula 1 talks were held with the late Niki Lauda about a potential switch to Mercedes to partner Lewis Hamilton.
The German retired from F1 at the end of this season, ending a career spanning 16 years, 53 wins and four world titles. Despite being the dominant drivers of their generation, Vettel and Hamilton never raced as teammates, only truly fighting for the championship head-to-head in the ’17 and’ 18 seasons with the British driver coming out on top in both campaigns.
During Seb’s stint with Ferrari, he revealed how he held talks with Lauda who was then Mercedes non-executive chairman. It was Lauda himself that had played an instrumental role in signing Hamilton from McLaren for the 2013 season.
Vettel, speaking on the Beyond the Grid podcast, said; “maybe there was [an opportunity, and] I spoke with Niki, but to be honest, it was halfway through the Ferrari period. Obviously it would have been a big deal, because Lewis was their number one, and I’m not sure whether they would have liked to have us both in the team. But I also didn’t have great interest at that time, because I was so committed to Ferrari. That was my dream to make that thing work, so you talk to each other, but it wasn’t really serious.”
“I think it would have been a great challenge [to be teammates with Lewis], and I think I would have enjoyed that, but it just wasn’t meant to be. At that time, like I said, my focus was to win with Ferrari. I didn’t want to change team and win with Mercedes, but it just didn’t happen. I am cool with that.“
Despite never quite finding the form with Ferrari during his time with the Italian team, he did enjoy relative success. It would have been interesting to see the two dominant drivers of the early 2010’s in equal machinery.
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