Carlos Sainz: the future is becoming less red
“I have to be honest, I don’t like entering the last year of my contract without really knowing where I’ll be racing next year.” Carlos Sainz has recently sent this message to Scuderia Ferrari, although team principal Frederic Vasseur has reiterated that negotiations with the drivers will not begin until the winter since the contracts expire at the end of the 2024 Formula 1 campaign.
The new leader of the Maranello team has ‘justified’ this policy by citing Lewis Hamilton as an example, whose contract with Mercedes expires at the end of 2023 and has not yet been officially extended, although team boss Toto Wolff has already confirmed that the agreement is already ratified from an ’emotional’ standpoint.
The first approaches between Ferrari and Charles Leclerc’s entourage to extend the contract expiring at the end of 2024 – the last year of the five-year deal signed by the Monegasque driver at the end of 2019 – seem to have already started. However, these rumors surely haven’t pleased Carlos Sainz, who has been portrayed by the Spanish press as a driver who has not been adequately valued by Ferrari lately. Like Charles Leclerc, Carlos Sainz’s contract expires at the end of 2024, and it is likely that after four seasons as a Ferrari driver, the Madrid-born racer will be looking for a lead driver seat elsewhere.
“I have the feeling that Carlos Sainz has lost confidence in the team,” said former driver Ralf Schumacher, now a commentator for Sky Sport Deutschland. “There are rumors that his father is in the paddock looking for alternatives.” One possibility for Carlos Sainz, according to journalist Joe Saward‘s blog, could be to ‘anticipate’ Audi’s arrival in F1 in 2026 and join Sauber starting in 2025 to familiarize himself with the team in preparation for the regulatory revolution expected in the sport in three seasons.
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