One year, two drivers The conclusion of the 2012 world championship coincided with the end of great experiences for two drivers such as Michael Schumacher and Lewis Hamilton: the former, after returning to F1 in 2010, definitively retired from competition, at the same time leaving his seat vacant at Mercedes. The second said goodbye to McLaren, the team with which he had debuted in 2007 and which saw him win his first world title the following year. The replacement for ‘Schumi’ In 2013 it was the Englishman who took the place of the ‘Kaiser’, giving rise to a period of world championship success from 2014 to 2020, with the sole exception of 2016, when his teammate Nico Rosberg won. Yet, returning to 2013, Hamilton’s arrival at Mercedes proved to be anything but a given. Ross Brawn, then Head of Sports Management of the team, admitted this in an interview on the official F1 channels, more than ten years later. The English engineer, in fact, was very impressed by Nico Hülkenberg’s performance at the wheel of teams such as Williams and Force India, especially after the pole position achieved in mixed track conditions in the 2010 Brazilian GP as a rookie and for a brief challenge for victory with Hamilton himself two years later, again at Interlagos. Close to signing For these reasons, Brawn recalled having started negotiations with the German, with Mercedes however deciding to focus on Hamilton for 2013: “When I was at Mercedes we were almost about to hire Nico because we didn’t know what the situation was with Lewis for 2013 – he admitted – we were going through a difficult period in concluding the agreement with Lewis, and Nico was on stand-by. He behaved in a very mature way during those discussions. I made the situation as transparent as possible, saying that there was a possibility of an agreement, but that it all depended on what Lewis decided to do in the end. When Lewis signed with us we managed to resolve the issue with Nico saying that we couldn’t go forward, but I was looking forward to working with him because I think he’s a great driver.”
