Hamilton-Vettel pairing will never happen – Horner

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner says he would be “amazed” to see F1 world champions Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel ever team up in the same outfit.

Horner revealed last month that Hamilton was “desperate to drive” for Red Bull in 2013, as the Milton Keynes-based team then dominated the sport with Vettel at the helm.

The Red Bull team principal even candidly admitted he had encouraged to Hamilton to join Mercedes not only “to weaken McLaren” but also because “there was no way we could accommodate him while Sebastian was with us”.

Hamilton and Vettel have combined for seven of the last eight F1 championships contested. After sealing the 2008 crown with McLaren, the Briton is currently on a two-title streak at Mercedes. For his part, the German secured four consecutive titles from 2010-13 under Horner’s stewardship at Red Bull.

With Ferrari looking quite frisky in pre-season testing, the pair is expected to duke it out for the 2016 title, though Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg remains a serious contender as well.

As for the prospect of seeing Hamilton and Vettel square off as team-mates in the near future, Horner simply does not see it happening.

“I’d be amazed to ever see the two of them sitting in the same team,” Horner is quoted as saying by The Telegraph. “From a team point of view as well it would be very difficult to envisage that scenario. It could be very, very divisive. You’ve always got one who is elated and one who is p------ off.”

Though highly unlikely, a Hamilton-Vettel pairing would undeniably have the flavour and appeal of the Ayrton Senna-Alain Prost rivalry at McLaren in the late 1980s.

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