Helmut Marko h♍as shared back-stories of Red Bull’s failure to sign Fernando Alonso and Lando Norris.

He ins𒐪ists that talks were at a serious🅘 stage with both drivers several years ago, but the moves fell apart for differing reasons.

Red Bull’s intere🐈st in Alonso came shortly after he had won back-to-back F1 championships with Renault🉐.

“Before we started winning, in 2🌼008 or so, we were talking to Alonso,” Marko tol🧜d the Inside Line F1 podcast.

“He didn’t t🐎ake us seriously, I guess. Soꦉ it didn’t happen.”

Alonso was in the process of finding a new home after exiting McL♕aren, and eventually plumped for a return t🧔o Renault in 2008.

Red Bull, in that year, had David Coult🔯hard and Mark Webber as their drivers.

Contract clause ended Norris chase

Their pursuit of Norris, Marko cla✤ims, came slightly closer to a resolution.

Marko didn’t specify a year but Norris debuted in F1 in 2019 - when ⛎Red Bull had Max Verstappen and Pierre Gasly, and Toro Rosso had Alex Albon and Daniil Kvyat.

Marko said about Norris: “We had serious discussiꦺons, and we had a contract ready, for Lando Norris.

“For AlphaTauri, or Toro Rosso at the time.

“Unfortunately [McLaren] found out💫. They had two contracts, and then one was a clause which stopped this cooperation with Lando N🐲orris.”

Norris, of course, has steadily improved to the stage where he is now seriously threateni🍰ng Verstappen’s driver⛦s’ championship.

The two close friend𓄧s are battling for this year’s title and Verstappen’s once-iron grip has been loosened to just 62 points.

Norris is also aiding McLaren’s cha𒁃rge to the constructors’ championship - they are eight points adrift of Red Bull.

But how the F1 grid might have look🃏ed different if Red Bull landed these big-name targets🦋.