Lewis Hamilton has hinted he would offer Sebastian Vettel his Mercedes drive when he retires from F1 in a hilarious press conference exchange. Vettel will walk away from F1 after the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix but Hamilton has refused to believe the German will leave forever.
When asked to describe his favorite memories of racing with Vettel, Hamilton revealed that he expected his former rival could make a return. He said: “We always had such great battles honestly and I was just sitting here thinking most drivers are coming back.”
Pointing at Fernando Alonso, Hamilton continued: “He’s come back. You’re probably going to come back. We’ve seen other drivers come back. I’m here accepting ‘yeah it’s your last race’ but he’ll be back.
“Formula One has a way of sucking you back in. We’ve noticed that with so many other drivers.” Vettel quickly replied: “We can make a deal. We can speak outside. When you want to get away maybe I want to come back.”
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“It would have been a big deal because Lewis was sort of their number one and then 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.”
Earlier this year, Vettel didn’t rule out that he could be tempted to return to the sport in the future. The 35-year-old was asked if he could come back at some point in a non-driving capacity.
He said: “I don’t know at the moment. I’m not considering anything, because I’m stepping away. Time will tell what will be something that is possible to do – if there is an offer of any such nature or not – and then I will see how I feel like [in] at the moment.”
