For the second straight season, Hamilton failed to win a race in 2023 as Mercedes fell well behind Red Bull and Max Verstappen with its W14 design.

The formerly all-conquering outfit also failed to secure a win for the first time since 2011, with boss Toto Wolff promising revolution for the 2024 W15 car as Hamilton seeks a seventh Drivers’ title with the team, and eighth overall.

The seven-time champion has not won since the 2021 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, and over the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix weekend, claims of an approach to Red Bull were flatly rejected, with Hamilton signing a new two-year deal for 2024 and 2025 earlier in the year.

He believes that rebuilding Mercedes into a title-winning outfit would be better for his legacy than simply stepping into the Red Bull.

“Let’s be realistic, every single driver that is racing here dreams of being in a winning car, and I think in my younger days when I hadn’t maybe had a lot of success in the McLaren days, it was a lot more attractive.

“When I think about it from a racing perspective, when I moved to this team, I enjoyed moving from a more successful team to a team that hadn’t had success with the vision of growing and building with a team, because when we did that, it was such a better feeling.

“Every driver here looks at the Red Bull car and would love to drive that car, and I am not saying that I wouldn’t love to drive that car and feel how good it is, every driver would feel that.

“We’ve had two difficult years, and if we work towards being that car, it is going to be a way better feeling than stepping into the best car.

“That wouldn’t do much for me, in the sense of stepping into the car that is the most dominant of all-time.

“Working with my team to build and be able to beat them, that would be better for my legacy.”