Red Bull advisor Dr Helmut Marko doesn’t “believe” that Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen would work well together in the same team, ruling out a future partnership between the two World Champions.
With Hamilton yet to sign a contract extension with Mercedes, rumours have been circulating on whether the 38-year-old could go elsewhere, having spent 11 years with the Silver Arrows.
The Briton was recently linked to a move to Ferrari amid a reported offer worth £40 million, something the Italians have since been ridiculed for.
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff has dismissed the rumours linking Hamilton to Ferrari and has revealed that the only thing missing from his new contract is a date, meaning an announcement over an extension could be imminent.
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The general expectation is that Hamilton’s new deal will keep him at Mercedes for 2024 and 2025, suggesting that he could retire before the new power unit regulations are introduced.
With Mercedes having struggled since the start of the new aerodynamic regulations, it was heavily discussed whether Hamilton would even want to stay with the Silver Arrows, given that they aren’t currently fighting for wins.
Whilst a move to Red Bull was never reported nor discussed, Marko still admitted that the Austrians wouldn’t ever consider signing Hamilton, with the 80-year-old being confident that the Briton and Verstappen wouldn’t work well together.
“We have Max Verstappen, and we are extremely satisfied with him,” said Marko.
“I don’t believe that the Verstappen-Hamilton combination would work within one team. We are highly content with our driver pairing, and there are plenty of issues and challenges already.”
Whilst Hamilton has dealt with competitive team-mates in the past, including, Nico Rosberg, Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button, partnering Verstappen would arguably be his greatest ever challenge.
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It’d certainly be a fascinating spectacle and likely an incredibly dominant one, given that Hamilton would suddenly have the best car on the grid at his disposal.
Red Bull though, don’t need to deal with all the politics that a Hamilton-Verstappen partnership would bring, largely as a result of 2021.
The Austrians are already keen to avoid in-house issues between Verstappen and Sergio Perez, with any situation likely to be 10-times worse if it was between Verstappen and Hamilton.