What was behind the Hamilton/Red Bull F1 soap opera

The story first emerged in the Daily Mail, claiming that Hamilton himself held talks with Red Bull before he signed his new Mercedes contract.

The newspaper suggested: “A representative of Lewis Hamilton contacted Red Bull about him partnering Max Verstappen at the world championship-winning team before he signed a £100million deal to remain at Mercedes, and he also held talks with Ferrari.”

The report had been triggered by a comment Red Bull team boss Christian Horner made to the newspaper as part of a lengthy end-of-season interview.

Horner was quoted as saying: “We have had several conversations over the years about Lewis joining. They have reached out a few times. Most recently, earlier in the year, there was an inquiry about whether there would be any interest.”

That remark was enough to kick off the story and dramatic headline, which then took a fresh twist as the F1 media arrived in Abu Dhabi and Hamilton was quizzed on it.

Speaking in his press briefing on Thursday, the Mercedes driver claimed the story was nonsense – and that it was he who had been approached by Horner.

Asked about the Red Bull links, Hamilton said: “I’ve checked with everyone in the team, and no one’s spoken to them. But they have tried to reach out to us.

“Basically, I had picked up my old phone, which I just found at home, that had my old number on it and obviously, hundreds of messages came through. I realised there was one from Christian to get together and have a chat at the end of the season.”

The statements from Hamilton and Horner appeared to contradict each other – and were a classic case of F1 ‘he said, she said’ where there are conflicting interpretations of the same event.

However, from speaking to paddock sources with good knowledge of the situation, the paddock soap opera seems to have been whipped up from nothing more than fairly normal conversations that take place between leading players.

And rather than this being a repeat of the infamous time when Hamilton visited Horner at his Red Bull motorhome in Canada back in 2011 to enquire about the possibility of a seat back then, this time matters seem to have been more just regular informal chatter that takes place all the time.

Let’s not forget that one of the jobs of every team and every driver is to know exactly what options are on the table for the…