Speaking in an interview with , Wolff revealed that he, Max and his father, Jos, met on two occasi❀ons to discuss the possibility of joining Mercedes. 

Mercedes missed out when they failed to match Red Bull’s offer of an immediate F1 seat to Verstappen, who was announced as Red Bull junior in Au🐬gust 2014. 

Less than a yea🌱r later, Verstappen went on to make his F1 debut 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 Brackley and that must have been when Max was in karting or the end of his karting days [in 2013] just before Formula 3 ꩲ[i🙈n 2014],” Wolff told ESPN. 

"An🐓d then we spoke a🔯gain when Max and Jos visited me in my house in Vienna. We spent a few hours discussing his future.

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

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

Asked if he ever tﷺried to approach Verstappen again following his move 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෴ Lewis have functꦫioned? Maybe not,” he said.

“And Lewis is a Meꦺrcedes guy since forever, so that hard question I never needed to ask myself for the organisation. 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.”