Mercedes, Verstappen trade jokes on vacant Rosberg seat

It did not take long after Nico Rosberg’s shock retirement from Formula One for the rumour mill to start spinning names of potential candidates to replace the 2016 world champion.

Among them is F1’s hottest property Max Verstappen, who nearly became a Mercedes junior back in 2014 before Red Bull secured his services with a Toro Rosso F1 promotion for 2015.

Although the Dutch phenom is under contract with Red Bull until 2018, it did not prevent Verstappen from engaging in some banter with Mercedes across Twitter, which included cheeky references to Toto Wolff’s phone calls to his father Jos.

Here is a look at how things unfolded:

Reference please @Max33Verstappen