25/11/2023
NEWS STORY
As the 'Horner/Hamilton saga' continues, the Red Bull boss claims that he was actually contacted by the seven-time world champion's father.
In the wake of Horner's claim that representatives of the Mercedes driver contacted him and Ferrari about a possible move, there have been strong denials from the seven-time champion himself and his boss, Toto Wolff.
"I just don't know what drives the guy," said the Mercedes boss of his Red Bull counterpart. "We just don't understand his thinking to come up with these things.
"What happened is that Christian - through an agency that we work with - wanted to have Lewis' contact details to speak about the seat. That's how the whole thing went.
"It was Christian enquiring about Lewis' availability," he insisted. "Lewis had an exchange with Christian, which he immediately told me about, and which was not about a seat but it was just blah. I don't know what drives him to come out with this."
"I've not approached Christian," said Hamilton. "I haven't spoken to Christian for years and no one from my team has. I've checked with everyone; no one from my team has reached out to him.
"However, he had reached out to me about meeting up at the end of the season," he added. "I was like, 'I hope you are well, I wish you all the best, congratulations on an amazing season so far, and I hope that I am able to compete with you in the near future'."
"It's remarkable how much traction this has got," laughed Horner when asked about the comments. "So thank you to the Daily Mail for going exclusively large on this item.
"I mean, it's a question of he said, she said, who said, what said," he continued. "It's entirely normal for drivers, drivers' representatives, drivers' parents, to have different conversations during the course of the year and look, we haven't had any serious discussions with Lewis. There was never a seat available.
"But, you know, I've known Anthony Hamilton for many years, he's a good guy. He's a proud racing father and inevitably when drivers go through tough spots - and you know, let's face it, Lewis hasn't won a Grand Prix for two years - it's inevitable that questions will be asked up and down the paddock.
"But there was never any engagement and I don't know who represents who or what, but with the same surname, you would think they were reasonably close.
"It's difficult to say, but there was no, other than pleasantries. There was no specific 'can I drive for Red Bull next year', unless Anthony wanted to drive. So yeah, but that's, as I say, not unusual. I mean, there are many drivers, as you can imagine, that we hear from during the course of a year."
Asked if he can imagine how surprised Mercedes might have felt on hearing that Hamilton - or his father - had been in touch, Horner said: "Well, not really. I mean, he's the most successful driver of all time, and hasn't won a Grand Prix since 2021. So you haven't got to be a rocket scientist to work that out.
"And I doubt that I was the only one that there was an inquiry made to. Now, what the dynamics are within any given relationship, I don't know. I'm not privy to that. But, you know, inevitably there are questions going to be asked. And there's not really much more to say a lot has been made out of something fairly innocuous."