Wolff’s regret over not signing Verstappen as two meetings revealed
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Speaking in an interview with ESPN, Wolff revealed that he, Max and his father, Jos, met on two occasions to discuss the possibility of joining Mercedes. Should Charles Leclerc leave Ferrari?Video of Should Charles Leclerc leave Ferrari?Mercedes missed out when they failed to match Red Bull’s offer of an immediate F1 seat to Verstappen, who was announced as Red Bull junior in August 2014. Less than a year later, Verstappen went on to make his F1 debut with Red Bull’s sister team Toro Rosso at just 17 years of age. “I spoke to Jos and Huub Rothengatter [Jos Verstappen’s manager during his F1 career] when they came to my office in Brackley and that must have been when Max was in karting or the end of his karting days [in 2013] just before Formula 3 [in 2014],” Wolff told ESPN. “And then we spoke again when Max and Jos visited me in my house in Vienna. We spent a few hours discussing his future.”Do I regret missing out on Max? Certainly. But it wasn’t an option back in the day.”We had two drivers that I was extremely happy with, in Nico and Lewis, and when Nico left [at the end of 2016], Valtteri [Bottas] was then the option and Max wasn’t even available.”Asked if he ever tried to approach Verstappen again following his move to Red Bull, Wolff said: ”After that we always had friendly contact but never discussing driving.”Related Wolff: Hamilton could sign new Mercedes F1 deal this week Demaison joining Hyundai will turn ideas into reality – Abiteboul
However, Wolff doubts that a driver pairing of Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton would have worked at Mercedes. “Would Max and Lewis have functioned? Maybe not,” he said.“And Lewis is a Mercedes guy since forever, so that hard question I never needed to ask myself for the organisation. Everything happens for a reason.“But I had two drivers in the seats, no deal with a junior team, so it was clear that the option with Toro Rosso was what they needed to do. And they did well.”
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