Christian Horner once explained why he ‘encouraged’ Mercedes to sign Lewis Hamilton

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Christian Horner and Red Bull were the dominant team in Formula 1 in the early 2010s. But McLaren and Lewis Hamilton posed a threat to their success.

Red Bull won four consecutive titles with Sebastian Vettel from 2010 to 2013, displaying complete dominance in 2011 and 2013. Fernando Alonso challenged for the title with Ferrari in 2010 and 2012, but narrowly missed out on the German.

After winning his maiden championship in 2008, Hamilton began to struggle with unreliability at McLaren. He won just 12 more times after claiming his first title and achieved a best finish of fourth in 2010 and 2012.

Hamilton referred to his McLaren car as ‘awful’ as he began to consider his future in F1. In 2013, he made the move to Mercedes, and Horner had something to do with that shocking transfer.

Christian Horner tried to weaken McLaren by pushing Mercedes to sign Lewis Hamilton

According to the then-Red Bull team principal, Hamilton was ‘desperate’ to sign with the Milton Keynes outfit, but as Horner explained, there was no place for him in the team while Vettel was the number one driver.

“He was desperate to drive for the team,” Horner told F1 Racing magazine, via quotes from ESPN.

“In 2012, he wanted to come and drive for us, but there was no way we could accommodate him while Sebastian was with us. Then before he signed for Mercedes he was very keen to drive for Red Bull for 2013.”

In the end, the Brit landed in Brackley, which was a controversial move at the time as the team had not had much success since returning to F1 in 2010. Mercedes were initially put off signing Hamilton due to his substantial price tag.

But as Horner noted, he was keen to ‘weaken’ McLaren as he saw them as a threat to Red Bull with Hamilton on board. Therefore, he pushed Niki Lauda, who acted as an advisor for Mercedes, to sign him for 2013.

However, the Red Bull boss was blissfully unaware of what was going on at Mercedes as they prepared for the new technical regulations in 2014. They would go on to dominate the sport in the turbo-hybrid era, with Hamilton winning six championships.

“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,” said Horner.

“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.”

READ MORE: Ferrari driver Lewis Hamilton’s life outside F1 from net worth to family

Lewis Hamilton shut down a move to Red Bull back in 2023 after Christian Horner approach

The 2013 season is not the only time that Hamilton has attracted interest from Red Bull. Rumours swirled that he could be on the move to Milton Keynes for 2024, as his contract with Mercedes was expiring.

He shut down the speculation by signing a contract extension with Mercedes, only for Hamilton to announce his shock move to Ferrari, before the 2024 season, for 2025 and beyond.

Speaking via the official F1 website back in Abu Dhabi in 2023, Hamilton confirmed that Horner had approached him, but he showed little interest in joining Red Bull.

“I’ve not approached Christian; I haven’t spoken to Christian for years and no one from my team has,” he said,

“I’ve checked with everyone, no one from my team has reached out to him. However, he had reached out to me about meeting up at the end of the season.

“And I was like, ‘I hope you are well; I wish you all the best, congratulations on an amazing season so far, and I hope that I am able to compete with you in the near future.’”