Ricciardo open to joining Hamilton at Mercedes as contract winds down

Red Bull Racing’s Daniel Ricciardo has suggested he could be interested in joining Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes next season.

The Australian driver produced an overtaking masterclass to storm to victory at the Chinese Grand Prix two weeks ago.

Ricciardo, 28, is out of contract at the end of the year, and while Red Bull are keen to retain his services, he could have the pick of the top three teams.

Despite qualifying ahead of Hamilton in the past two rounds, Valtteri Bottas could be moved on from Mercedes at the end of the year, while Kimi Raikkonen’s future at Ferrari is also unclear.

A move to Ferrari would see Ricciardo once again join forces with Sebastian Vettel, who he out-performed during their one campaign together at Red Bull in 2014.

“I would love to be challenged against the best and Lewis is arguably up there,” said Ricciardo ahead of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

“I’ve got a good challenge now obviously with Max [Verstappen] and I had Seb, too, so I don’t want to say it’s just Lewis I’m looking for, but that would be a good challenge.”

Ricciardo is likely to wait until the summer break before making his decision with Mercedes understood to be willing to give Bottas the first half of the year to prove his worth.

Mercedes are open to the idea of pairing Ricciardo with Hamilton and would not anticipate a repeat of the intra-team fireworks that overshadowed Nico Rosberg’s time alongside the Briton.

At Ferrari meanwhile, Raikkonen has proved to be the perfect deputy for Vettel, but the veteran Finn turns 39 in October. Ricciardo, who claims to have spoken only to Red Bull about his plans for next year, insisted on Thursday that he would only consider a move to Ferrari on equal terms.

“I would always make sure that there was some clarity,” Ricciardo said. “I wouldn’t want to go somewhere where I didn’t feel I had a chance. At the moment what I’m chasing is to try and be world champion. That’s my goal, my dream, and something I really believe I’m capable of, so if someone said ‘we’ll let you come here but you can’t do this’, that’s not an attractive option to me.”

Hamilton, meanwhile, has no concerns about his own delayed contract talks.

“I am fully committed to Mercedes,” he said. “I have every plan to be with the team for the future.”