Nico Hulkenberg discusses how he almost secured a Ferrari seat in 2019 and a potential move to Red Bull before turning it down.
The 32-year-old Dane, who has been left without an F1 drive for 2025 after losing his Haas seat to Esteban Ocon, has explained how his career could have looked very different. During his first spell at Haas, Magnussen revealed he was in contention to replace Kimi Raikkonen at Ferrari . But Ferrari ultimately ended up promoting protege Charles Leclerc for 2019 after an impressive rookie campaign with Sauber. 'It was my third year in F1. I was 24 or something...
23? You know, anything was still possible. I still believed it was possible. And there were moments when I felt it was going in that direction,” Magnussen told 'In 2018, we had a really good car in the first half of the year. Charles had just arrived in F1 with Sauber. And the start of his first season wasn't great. And mine was really good! And then suddenly Ferrari was reaching out. 'Suddenly I was driving in their simulator, not for Haas, but for Ferrari. They were sniffing around. And I thought, okay... I was already getting excited about where this was going. But then Charles started to really kill it! And I heard nothing. 'I don't know how close it got. But I think if Charles had not started to perform, if he had had a s***** season all year long, I think I would have been one of the drivers they would have looked at.Magnussen also had the opportunity to join the Red Bull stable and believes he could have eventually ended up racing alongside Max Verstappen at the senior team. Following Daniel Ricciardo’s departure from Red Bull at the end of 2018, Magnussen’s management reached out to team principal Christian Horner, who opened the door to a potential seat with Toro Rosso. But Magnussen was not interested in racing for Red Bull’s sister team at the time and turned down the offer, something he admits was probably a mistake in hindsigh
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