Former Formula 1 team owner Peter Sauber has claimed that his eponymous outfit “almost” signed Lewis Hamilton. The Brit famously started his F1 career in 2007 with McLaren and was immediately in contention for the title in a front-running car alongside double World champion Fernando Alonso – but it seems there was initially a very different plan for his development.
McLaren knew the talent that they had at their disposal, but Hamilton only turned 22 in January 2007 and his team felt he might benefit from a season with a team further down the grid, to get him used to how F1 worked before stepping up to race for the main team.
Midfield outfit Sauber were identified as an option and negotiations took place over what would have been a loan-style deal. However, though talks progressed, the move eventually fell through as, according to former owner Peter, they could not agree on how long the young Brit would race for the Swiss outfit.
He told Blick: “Hardly anyone knows that around 20 years ago, Lewis Hamilton almost drove for us. The Brit belonged to McLaren and they wanted to send him to Hinwil for his Formula 1 apprenticeship. So the McLaren delegation met with Lewis and his father, as well as our in-house lawyer Monisha Kaltenborn and myself at Kloten Airport. The deal fell through because McLaren only wanted to loan him for one year, but we insisted on two.”
Even if he had made his F1 debut in a Sauber, Hamilton would have still made a competitive start to life on the F1 grid. The Hinwil-based team enjoyed a strong 2007 with its first car fully designed by BMW after the German carmaker bought the team, securing 15 top-five finishes over the course of the season, though only two of those were podiums – both secured by Nick Heidfeld.
Plus, Sauber had a couple of young talents of their own coming through the pipeline. Robert Kubica had debuted in 2006 and, in that ’07 season, overcame a rough start to the year to find remarkable consistency, finishing in the top eight on 11 occasions. And that year also saw Sebastian Vettel make his F1 debut, filling in for the concussed Kubica in Indianapolis.
As for Hamilton’s career, it turned out to be something of a sliding doors moment. 2007 was a difficult year in the end of the McLaren, as they were excluded from the constructors’ championship over the ‘Spygate’ scandal and the infighting between their drivers led to both of them being beaten to the crown by Kimi Raikkonen.
Alonso left, leaving Hamilton as the main man at McLaren and he would use that platform to take the first of his seven championships the following year. Had they not fallen out in 2007, Alonso might have remained with McLaren in ’08 and that first title might never have come for the Brit.