Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel had one of F1’s biggest rivalries in the last decade, but the pair was also close to being teammates in the early stages of their careers.
Hamilton joined the grid in 2007 with McLaren and had already made an impression against defending world champion Fernando Alonso. The Spaniard switched to the team after taking his final title with Renault, but he was finding it tough to replicate the same success.
Alonso was later implicated in the spygate scandal, when the team was fined millions of dollars for stealing confidential information from rival Ferrari. Alonso was accused of playing a role which led to a falling out with team principal Ron Dennis.
McLaren decided to mutually end their partnership with Alonso at the end of the 2007 season, which meant they had to search for Hamilton’s teammate in 2008. Finnish driver Heikki Kovalainen got the nod, but the team had come close to poaching Vettel from Red Bull.
Discussing how it happened on the ‘And Colossally… That’s History!’ podcast, former McLaren press officer Matt Bishop recalls how the situation unfolded.
Sebastian Vettel was close to being Lewis Hamilton’s teammate at McLaren in 2008
Vettel already made an impressive debut for Toro Rosso in 2007 having been brought into F1 by Red Bull, and McLaren had their eye on the young German for a seat alongside his former European F3 rival Hamilton.
Dennis wanted to discuss a potential switch to McLaren for 2008, but was barred by the FIA Contract Recognition Board from making any contact. Bishop, who was due to start as their press officer in 2008, was tasked with making the first contact.
“Fernando had left McLaren at the end of 2007, so the team was slightly scrabbling over who they could have as a teammate for Lewis Hamilton. The first candidate was Nico Rosberg and that didn’t come about for various reasons and as we know that ended up being Heikki Kovalainen, who was a nice guy but wasn’t at the level of Lewis Hamilton or perhaps Nico Rosberg,” said Bishop.
“But Ron rang me at the end of 2007 and said ‘You’ve agreed to join McLaren for 2008 so can you do me a favour?’ I said ‘Yeah sure’ and he responded ‘Well contract recognition board prevents me or any other officer of McLaren from calling Sebastian Vettel and trying to persuade him to leave the Red Bull empire and join McLaren. But you could call because you’re technically still a journalist aren’t you?’
“So I rang Seb. I had a number of conversations with him in the Autumn of 2007 and he was very keen on joining, but in the end, he was just too bogged down in contractual red tape to do it. But what a difference that would’ve been if McLaren had Vettel and Hamilton together in 2008?”
Sebastian Vettel went on to future success at Red Bull
Any move to McLaren would have been lucrative given their position in the championship and as one of F1’s most competitive teams in the last 10 years.
Vettel was mostly finishing outside of the points in the uncompetitive Toro Rosso, but after the team took resources from Red Bull’s 2007 challenger for 2008 it led to Vettel eventually taking their first win at the Italian Grand Prix.
This win set Vettel on course for a seat in the main team in 2009, and although they just missed out on the title due to the phenomenal success story of Brawn GP, it would be the catalyst for a dominant four years for the German and Red Bull.
Hamilton replicated his promise from 2007 with impressive victories in 2008, including the British GP which Hamilton claimed was the ‘greatest win’ of his career. He would go on to win the first of his seven world titles.
