Lewis Hamilton’s decision to leave McLaren for Mercedes ahead of the 2013 Formula 1 season ultimately became one of the defining moves in the sport’s modern history, but Red Bull could easily have been part of a very different story. Christian Horner has previously revealed that Hamilton was extremely interested in joining the Austrian team, while also explaining how he encouraged Mercedes to pursue the British driver instead.
The irony is difficult to ignore. Hamilton would eventually win six of his seven Formula 1 World Championships with Mercedes, building one of the most successful driver-team partnerships the championship has ever seen. Yet according to Christian Horner’s account, the former Red Bull team principal played an unexpected part in steering the future seven-time champion towards the very team that would later become one of Red Bull’s greatest rivals.
Lewis Hamilton considered Red Bull before his 2013 Mercedes move
The relationship between Lewis Hamilton and Red Bull is now most closely associated with the intense rivalry that reached its peak during the 2021 Formula 1 season. Long before that confrontation, however, Hamilton had seriously explored the possibility of racing for the Milton Keynes team.
Christian Horner previously described the then-McLaren driver as desperate to join Red Bull before the 2013 campaign. Instead of pursuing the deal, the Red Bull boss encouraged Mercedes to sign Hamilton because he believed McLaren could become a particularly formidable rival over the following seasons.
That assessment produced an extraordinary unintended consequence. Mercedes secured Hamilton’s signature, and the Briton left the team that had guided him through his junior career and into Formula 1. Horner would later recognise just how successful that gamble became when reflecting on Hamilton’s decision to leave McLaren for Mercedes.
Niki Lauda also played an essential role in convincing Hamilton that Mercedes represented the right destination. The Austrian legend helped persuade a driver who was taking an enormous professional risk by leaving an established race-winning operation for a manufacturer that had not yet demonstrated championship-winning form. The importance of Lauda’s influence has remained part of the story of Hamilton’s transformative move to Mercedes in 2013.
Mercedes also had Nico Hülkenberg under consideration
Hamilton was not Mercedes’ only possible solution as the team considered its 2013 driver line-up. Michael Schumacher had yet to make a definitive decision about continuing in Formula 1, leaving Mercedes evaluating alternatives alongside Nico Rosberg.
Ross Brawn was also interested in Nico Hülkenberg. With Hamilton unhappy at McLaren, Mercedes effectively had two very different options available. Had Hamilton instead reached an agreement with Red Bull, Hülkenberg would likely have become the leading candidate to partner Rosberg.
That single change creates the first major branch in the hypothetical timeline. Rather than Hamilton and Rosberg becoming team-mates, Mercedes could have entered the turbo-hybrid era with two German drivers. Given the enormous competitive advantage Mercedes subsequently established, Rosberg might have collected more championships than the single crown he secured before retiring at the end of 2016.
Hülkenberg, meanwhile, could theoretically have found himself with an opportunity to compete for one or even two World Championships of his own. That outcome is necessarily speculative, but it illustrates just how strongly Hamilton’s choice affected far more than his own career.
Why Sebastian Vettel could still have dominated 2013
A Hamilton move to Red Bull would not necessarily have changed the immediate outcome of the 2013 championship. Sebastian Vettel entered that season as the defending three-time World Champion and was already firmly established within the team.
Hamilton would also have needed time to adapt to a completely different car and working environment. For those reasons, the most plausible version of the hypothetical 2013 campaign still ends with Vettel completing his fourth consecutive World Championship.
The consequences would have become much more significant from 2014 onwards. Instead of joining the operation that was about to dominate the new turbo-hybrid regulations, Hamilton would have remained with Red Bull as Mercedes became Formula 1’s benchmark team.
In retrospect, Hamilton has also discussed the risks involved in major career decisions, including why remaining in one place can itself represent a gamble. His 2013 move remains the clearest example of a decision that initially appeared uncertain but ultimately transformed his place in Formula 1 history.
Max Verstappen’s Red Bull path could also have changed
The implications would not have stopped with Mercedes. Max Verstappen’s rise through Red Bull would potentially have unfolded very differently if Hamilton had occupied one of the senior team’s seats.
Once Sebastian Vettel left for Ferrari ahead of 2015, the composition of Red Bull’s driver line-up would have become increasingly important. Daniel Ricciardo had established himself as a Grand Prix winner, while Hamilton in this alternative scenario would already have been a World Champion embedded within the team.
That would have made the spectacular decision Red Bull eventually took in 2016 far more difficult to imagine. In reality, Verstappen was promoted to the senior team for the Spanish Grand Prix while still a teenager. Recreating such a move in a scenario where one of Red Bull’s seats belonged to Hamilton would have required the team to remove an established World Champion or fundamentally restructure its driver plans.
Even by Red Bull’s famously aggressive standards when managing drivers, replacing Hamilton with a teenager would have represented an extraordinary decision.
Hamilton could have missed the Mercedes championship era
The largest consequence concerns the championships Hamilton would have surrendered by choosing Red Bull. Mercedes became the dominant force when Formula 1 moved into the turbo-hybrid era, while Red Bull faced significant limitations from its Renault power unit during much of the middle and latter part of the 2010s.
A Hamilton committed to Red Bull would therefore have been unlikely to enjoy the sustained championship opportunities that defined his real Mercedes career. Instead of repeatedly competing for titles, he could have spent several seasons trying to overcome a power unit disadvantage that prevented Red Bull from consistently matching the strongest package on the grid.
Mercedes, meanwhile, would still have possessed the technical platform that dominated the period. Rosberg’s championship opportunities could consequently have increased substantially, while Hülkenberg might have become one of the biggest beneficiaries of Hamilton choosing another path.
Would Lewis Hamilton have remained in F1 into the ground-effect era?
The hypothetical scenario becomes even more uncertain when extended into the following decade. Without the extraordinary run of success achieved at Mercedes, Hamilton’s motivation and career decisions could have evolved very differently.
One possibility is that he might eventually have retired after struggling to adapt to the generation of ground-effect Formula 1 cars introduced from 2022. That remains entirely theoretical, because changing his 2013 team would alter so many subsequent events that predicting his position nearly a decade later becomes increasingly speculative.
What is much easier to establish within this counterfactual exercise is that the path to seven World Championships would have been dramatically more difficult. Hamilton won six of those titles after choosing Mercedes. Removing him from the team just before its dominant era fundamentally changes the mathematics of his career.
Christian Horner’s unlikely role in Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes legacy
That is what makes Christian Horner’s involvement so intriguing. The former Red Bull chief was not attempting to create a Mercedes dynasty or help Hamilton become a seven-time World Champion. His thinking was shaped by his assessment of the competitive landscape at the time, including his concern that McLaren could emerge as a major threat.
Instead, Mercedes acquired the driver who would become central to its greatest period of Formula 1 success. Hamilton’s move from McLaren became a template for the kind of bold career decision he would later make again when choosing Ferrari, something Horner himself highlighted when discussing the similarities between Hamilton’s Mercedes and Ferrari switches.
The events that might have followed a 2013 Red Bull deal remain impossible to know with certainty. Sebastian Vettel’s career, Mercedes’ driver pairing, Nico Rosberg’s championship record, Nico Hülkenberg’s opportunities and Max Verstappen’s promotion could all have developed differently.
But one conclusion sits at the heart of the scenario: Hamilton joining Mercedes rather than Red Bull gave him access to the team that would dominate the turbo-hybrid era. Without that decision, the route that eventually produced seven Formula 1 World Championships would almost certainly have looked completely different.
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