"It just wasn’t meant to be" - Sebastian Vettel on discussions with Niki Lauda about joining Mercedes

Sebastian Vettel could have joined Mercedes during his Ferrari stint and had talks with Niki Lauda about it.

Vettel recently said that there were conversations of him moving to Mercedes, but they didn't materialise, as he wanted to win with Ferrari. He said on the Beyond the Grid podcast,

"I spoke with Niki halfway through the Ferrari period about joining. It would have been a big deal because Lewis was sort of their number one, and then I’m not sure whether they would have liked to have us both in the team. But I also didn’t have great interest at that time because I was so committed to Ferrari. That was my dream to make that thing work. So you talk to each other, but it wasn’t really serious.”

Talking about the prospect of teaming up with Lewis Hamilton, Vettel said:

“I think it would have been a great challenge. And I think I would have enjoyed that, but it just wasn’t meant to be. Like I said, my focus was to win with Ferrari, and that was my target. I didn’t want to change team, and win with Mercedes, if you see what I mean."

He continued:

"Other than just winning which I really love, it was winning with Ferrari. That was a great goal. It just didn’t happen so that’s fine, but I think I would have enjoyed racing with Lewis, we get along really well."

---

Sebastian Vettel talks about Baku incident with Lewis Hamilton

Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton had a coming together at Baku in 2017 and that had led to increased tensions between the drivers.

Vettel elaborated during the interview that it was not his best moments as a driver and he had to hash things out with Hamilton after that. He said:

"I think our moment was the 2017 Baku Grand Prix, where we had, maybe you can call it nowadays, a misunderstanding. It was one of those moments where things didn’t go my way, and I was upset and maybe the emotional side did take too much over. But I think actually, that moment was a key moment because it could have made us step away from each other more, or bring us together and it brought us together. "

He added:

"So I reflect and I did think about what happened and as much as I might have felt in the moment that is not fair, that’s not right, and I wanted to show him, I wanted to tell him that, obviously, we’re wearing helmets and it’s hard to communicate."

He added:

"So that was a form of communication. But I also did see that it was the wrong form. It was not the right way; it wasn’t sportsman like and not fair, which I admitted afterwards. We talked to each other, and I think since that moment we got closer to each other.”

Vettel will compete in his last F1 race in Abu Dhabi this weekend, and it will be interesting to see what he does next.