Daniel Ricciardo was offered a contract to join Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes for the 2017 F1 season, according to Sky Sports journalist and presenter Rachel Brookes.
In her new book Drive, Brookes revealed Ricciardo was the tri-star’s preferred replacement for Nico Rosberg when the German sensationally retired after clinching the 2016 championship.
Mercedes had dominated the sport since the beginning of the turbo-hybrid engine era, which began in 2014.
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Daniel Ricciardo and Lewis Hamilton could have been teammates in 2017. Getty
Red Bull meanwhile had floundered somewhat, largely due to their Renault engines, which were believed to be significantly underpowered compared to the Mercedes.
A Ricciardo-Hamilton combination would have arguably made one of the strongest driver pairings of all time.
“You’ll be hard pushed to find a driver who admits to a poor decision, but did you know, for example, that Daniel Ricciardo had an offer to replace Nico Rosberg at Mercedes when Rosberg left the sport in a shock announcement at the end of 2016?,” Brookes wrote.
“Yes, the Mercedes team that won in 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020. While Ricciardo was tied into a contract with Red Bull at the time, we all know that contracts are just bits of paper if both sides agree to end them (for an inordinate amount of money, no doubt!).
Ricciardo took victory at the 2017 Azerbaijan Grand Prix. Getty
“Instead, Ricciardo moved to Renault in 2019 and then McLaren in 2021, just before their resurgence.”
Brookes has been covering F1 since the late 2000s, and has been with Sky Sport for more than a decade.
Rosberg clinched the championship at the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix at the end of November, and then five days later shocked the sport when he announced he would not defend his title in 2017. He was the first reigning world champion to retire since Alain Prost in 1993.
The timing of Rosberg’s announcement, so late in the year with driver line-ups all but locked in for the 2017 season, meant Mercedes were hard-pressed to find a top driver who wasn’t under contract.
Ricciardo and Hamilton were involved in several on-track battles. LAT Images
Further complicating the matter was that 2017 was the first year of new aerodynamic regulations, which radically changed the look of the cars and how they drove. Given the significant lead-in time of new cars, any driver entering the team so late would have had a significant disadvantage.
Brookes did not elaborate on whether Ricciardo turned down the drive, or if it was blocked by Red Bull.
Valtteri Bottas, who had spent three seasons driving for the Mercedes-powered Williams team, was instead drafted into the team. Mercedes reportedly paid Williams somewhere in the vicinity of 10 million pounds to release him from the contract.
Ricciardo would go on to win three more races with Red Bull – including the 2017 Azerbaijan Grand Prix – before switching to Renault for 2019. Bottas won nine races for Mercedes, and finished second behind Hamilton in the standings in 2019 and 2020.