Peter Sauber has revealed that Lewis Hamilton came close to making his F1 debut with the Swiss team.

Coming off the back of success in the 2005 F3 Euroseries and the 2006 GP2 Championship, Hamilton was keen to make the move up to F1.

However, McLaren, by whom he had been backed since 1998, three years after famously telling, while still only 10, Ron Dennis that it was his ambition to drive for the Woking team one day, felt it would be in the youngster's best interest to make his debut with a 'lesser' team.

"Hardly anyone knows that, around twenty years ago, Lewis almost drove for us," Sauber tells Blick. "He belonged to McLaren and they wanted to send him to Hinwil for Formula 1 training.

"So, the McLaren delegation met with Lewis and his father, as well as our in-house lawyer Monisha Kaltenborn and myself, at Kloten Airport," adds Sauber, who attended the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix in December, the last time an F1 car was to bear his name before becoming Audi.

"However, the deal fell through because McLaren only wanted to loan him for one year, but we insisted on two years!"

With Juan-Pablo Montoya heading to NASCAR, and Kimi Raikkonen to Ferrari, McLaren opted to give Hamilton his F1 debut, alongside the recently signed Fernando Alonso.

The rest, as they say is history. Hamilton missed out on the title to Raikkonen by one point, while the season, certainly for the Woking team, was subsequently overshadowed by Spygate.

Sauber, which had been bought by BMW in mid-2005, ran Nick Heidfeld and Robert Kubica, the Hinwil-based outfit finishing runner-up to Ferrari by 103 points, McLaren having been excluded from the constructor standings.