Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko revealed he triggered Lewis Hamilton’s ultra-successful move to Mercedes in 2013.
After a fast start at McLaren, winning the title in his second season in 2008, the Briton’s Formula 1 career stalled somewhat in the early 2010s as Red Bull began to dominate.
Then, in 2012, F1 legend and then-Mercedes non-executive chairman Niki Lauda convinced Hamilton to leave the team he had been with since age eight and replace seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher from the following year.
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However, Marko has now revealed that it was he who first tipped off his fellow Austrian about the possibility of signing Hamilton, albeit for an intriguing reason.
“I gave him [Lauda] some information that Lewis would be available,” the Red Bull chief told Sport Bild.
“Of course, I was not being altruistic. At the time, we thought Lewis would be less of a threat to us at Mercedes than at McLaren, for whom he was driving at the time.
“In retrospect, that was a complete misjudgement, although at the time it was really not foreseeable. But with the knowledge I have today, I would definitely not do that again.”
Indeed, 82 wins and six championships at Mercedes later show how spectacularly Marko’s bid to tarnish Hamilton’s career backfired.
As for Lauda, he passed away in May 2019 after a long battle with illness, and Hamilton recently recalled how their relationship evolved.
“I miss Niki so much,” he said in a Mercedes YouTube video. “We had some of the best and funniest conversations. He was one of the funniest people I’ve ever met.
“While I was at McLaren, I know he had been quite critical of me, and we hadn’t actually met. He just had an assumption of who I was and had these certain comments that he made, so for me, I’m like ‘Niki doesn’t like me’.
“And I remember him giving me a call in 2012, asking me to come to the [Mercedes] team. And I don’t know if I even said ‘Niki doesn’t even like me, what are you talking about?’
“But we met and we had a really in-depth conversation and he’s like, ‘oh, you’re just like me’. I’m like ‘yeah Niki, I’m a racing driver’. [He said] ‘no, no, no, you’re a hard grafter’. So from that moment, we realised that we had a lot more in common than we both anticipated and we had an amazing relationship.
“We used to fly together to races, particularly back from Japan, and he had the funniest stories that you would just be on the floor laughing, me and Toto [Wolff, team principal] with the stuff that he would come out with.
“He was such a fighter, and he’s still very much a part of the team.
“One of the proud moments for me was Niki used to always, if I did a good job, he would take his hat off, which he didn’t take off for anything really, and if I did a bad job, he would do this [rub fingers together in money symbol], basically saying, give me my money back!”
Hamilton then reflected on the 2019 Monaco Grand Prix, the first race after Lauda’s death, which he was able to win.
“I dedicated a helmet to him,” he began. “And it was a really special day to be honest because we nearly lost the race.
“It was so important for me to win that race for Niki and I don’t know why, but I guess it’s because that was that week that Niki had left us, so it would mean so much to me if I got that win.
“I remember nearly losing it and I wasn’t able to even enjoy the joy of the win afterwards. I remember getting back, I was so spent I went straight to bed, I didn’t get up and go to dinner, I didn’t get up and celebrate my win.
“Of course, you’re looking back and you’re like ‘I wish I did’, but I just didn’t have the energy, I was so mentally and physically drained and also just sad that I lost a friend.”
