Lewis Hamilton: Mercedes driver denies Red Bull approach claims by Christian Horner

Hamilton was asked whether he would like to compete against Red Bull’s three-time world champion Max Verstappen in the same team.

He replied: “I would be more than happy to race against Max in the same car. It would be wonderful. I don’t think he wants me to be his team-mate.”

Asked the same question, Verstappen said: “What would it add to know? It’s not happening. There is no point to make up stories if, if – it’s not happening.

“I wouldn’t mind, it doesn’t matter, anyone [can be my team-mate]. I don’t want to particularly put it on Lewis, there are so many great drivers as well. Sometimes it doesn’t work out like that.”

Hamilton said he preferred to stay with Mercedes and try to rebuild the team into championship winners than move to a car that was already winning.

“Signing has shown my commitment to the team,” he said. “Let’s be realistic. 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.

“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.

“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.

“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.”