Ron Dennis hasn’t ruled out the possibility of luring Lewis Hamilton back to the outfit in the future once they’ve returned to their winning ways.
Hamilton split with the team at the end of 2012, ending a long-relationship between the two, but the 29-year-old insisted he could return to his “home team” if his situation were to change.
Dennis says that’s a possibility, but they need to prove they’re competitive following one of their worst ever seasons.
“I think money played a role in it [Hamilton’s departure], but it wasn’t a deciding factor,” he told Sky Sports News. “The fact is that for him it was possibly time to move on – there had been commitments made from both sides – and I appreciated and knew what the turning point was.
“I know Lewis’s character and he was bitterly disappointed to not win the Singapore Grand Prix. Strangely enough it wasn’t the failure of a McLaren component that forced him to stop in that race, but nevertheless he was vulnerable and the right offer at the right time was made to him and so he jumped.
“But who knows? As and when – and I can assure you it will be sooner rather than later – that we return to the level of competiveness that we have enjoyed in the past, he could well be one of the drivers that could be attracted back to us and he will be better for having experienced life in a different team environment.”
