Lewis Hamilton points to 'legacy' as reasoning behind dismissing potential Red Bull move

Abu Dhabi F1 GP Auto Racing
Lewis Hamilton at Abu Dhabi F1 GP Auto Racing

Lewis Hamilton feels it would be better for his legacy to beat Red Bull instead of joining the team. The driver addressed that after the last race of the season where the story of the weekend was his father approaching Christian Horner for a seat with the Austrian team.

After a lot of back and forth in the media between Hamilton, Toto Wolff and Red Bull's Christian Horner, the news died down by the end of the weekend. Having said that, the question was pitched to Hamilton if he would ever be interested in a move to the Austrian team.

Lewis Hamilton said that it wouldn't do much for him to step into the most dominant car of all time and win again. On the contrary, for his legacy, it would be better if he beat the dominant Red Bull with Mercedes. As quoted by PlanetF1.com, Hamilton said:

“Every driver here looks at the Red Bull car and would love to drive that car.
"I’m not saying I wouldn’t love to drive that car and experience how good that car is – every driver would feel that – [but] I feel that we’ve had two really difficult cars and if we work towards being that car, it is going to be a way better feeling than stepping into the best car."

He added:

“It wouldn’t do much for me in the sense of stepping into the most dominant car of all time. Working with my team to be able to beat them would be better for my legacy for sure.”

Every driver dreams of being in a winning car: Lewis Hamilton

Lewis Hamilton talked about how every driver would love to driver a race-winning car, and how that's what everybody hopes for.

However, what he values more is how he joined Mercedes back in the day and won with them.

“Let’s be realistic," said Hamilton. "Every single driver that’s racing here dreams of being in the winning car. In my younger days, when I hadn’t had a lot of success, maybe in the McLaren days, maybe it would have been a lot more attractive."

He added:

"From a racing perspective and my viewpoint on things, when I moved to this team, I enjoyed moving from a more successful team to a team that hadn’t had success to a vision of growing and building with a team, because when we did then win it was such a better feeling."

Lewis Hamilton has not won a race in two seasons. The driver has been unable to get any kind of challenge together for the title, as the car has just not been good enough. He will hope for a better run in 2024 as Mercedes hope to bounce back to championship-winning contention.

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