Lauda: Mercedes 'never made Verstappen an offer'

Formula One legend and head of Mercedes supervisory board Niki Lauda has confirmed that the Silver Arrows did not make an approach for the services of Max Verstappen to join Lewis Hamilton in a partnership when the team had a seat to fill following Nico Rosberg's surprise retirement.

2016 was a successful year for Mercedes as they won the constructor's championship and the driver's championship also via Rosberg. The German, to the shock of the F1 world, decided to retire after winning his only world title, meaning that Mercedes had a vacancy for the 2017 campaign.

Verstappen is one of the best prospects currently in F1 and was tipped to potentially move from Red Bull to Mercedes, but Lauda has confirmed no approach was made.

“Actually we never made Verstappen an offer," he said.

“I have a very good relationship with Red Bull Race Director Helmut Marko. We fly together and so on. But if he thinks you’re taking something away from him, he’ll make a quick contract. We talked about it today. I told him: You could have saved a lot of money. We never talked to Verstappen, not even about money. “

Lauda went on to confirm that Bottas was their main target to fill the seat of Rosberg, while reserving praise for the performances of the Finn, even if he could have improved slightly.

“It was only the right move because Bottas was the only available top driver. Lewis Hamilton then found new strength. Whether the reason was that Nico was gone, I do not know. But Hamilton has reached a level so that he was almost unbeatable. He made almost no mistakes and showed incredible races in the first part of the season, when the car was difficult to drive. ”

“Bottas did his job, he inspired Lewis. He could have performed a little better, but the Mercedes car was so hard to drive in the beginning, it was not easy for him”