Speaking in an interview with , Wolff revealed that he, Max and his father, Jos𝔉, met on two occasions to discuss the 🦹possibility of joining Mercedes. 

Mercedes missed out when they failed to&nb🐻sp;match Red Bull’s offer of an immediate F1 seat to Verstappen, who was announced as Red Bull junior in August 2014. 

Less than a year later, Verstappen went on to make his F1 d𝓰🌠ebut with Red Bull’s sister team Toro Rosso at just 17 years of age. 

"I spoke to Jos and Huub Rothengatter [Jos Verstappen's manager during his F1 career] when they came to my office in Brackl☂ey and that must have been when Max was in karting or the end of his karting days [in 2013] just before Formula 3 [in 2014],” Wolff told ESPN. 

"And then we spoke again when Max and Jos vi⛎sited me in my house in Vienna. We spent a fꦆew hours discussing his future.

"Do I regret missing out on Max? Certainlyꦛ. But it wasn't an option back꧂ in the day.

"We had two drivers that I was extremely happy with, in Nico and Lewis, and when Nico left [at the 🔯end of 2016], Valtteri [Bottas] was then the option an꧅d Max wasn't even available.”

Asked if he ever tried to approach Verstappen again following his m𒁃ove to Red Bull, Wolff said: ”After that we always had friendly contact but never discussing driving."

However, Wolff doubts that a driver pairing of Verstappen and 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:Lewis Hamilton would have worked at Mercedes. 

“Would Max and Le𒁃wis have functio🎃ned? Maybe not,” he said.

“And Lewis is a Mercedes g🥀uy since forever, so that hard question I never needed to ask myself for the orꦇganisation. Everything happens for a reason.

“But I 💝had two drivers in the seats, no deal with a junior team, so it was clear that the option with Toro Rosso was what they needed to do. And they did well.”