Martin Brundle believes McLaren should be worried about losing Carlos Sainz to Ferrari at the end of the Spaniard’s current contract.
At the moment, Sainz is one of a number of drivers including Lewis Hamilton, Sebastian Vettel, and Daniel Ricciardo who are free to move to another team at the conclusion of the 2020 F1 season.
Brundle, a former F1 driver turned pundit for Sky Sports, has revealed that he sold McLaren on a move for Sainz two years ago, and thinks he could be ready to make another step up in his career if the Prancing Horse come calling.
“Yeah, if he’s out of contract. I’ve always championed Carlos, and to McLaren when they weren’t sure about taking him,” Brundle responded when asked by the Daily Express if McLaren should be worried about losng Sainz to Ferrari – “I think he’s got his dad’s kind of sporting winning mentality — a double World Rally Champion of course, his dad [Carlos Sainz Sr.].”
Martin Brundle firmly believes that, when Sainz and Verstappen were together at Toro Rosso, there wasn’t much between the pair in terms of performance, but that the Dutchman was eventually favoured due to politics within the team, with both drivers having fathers who were formerly motorsport drivers in their own right.
“I think Sainz was very close [in performance] to [Max] Verstappen when they were at Toro Rosso. It got political,” he explained. – “It got dad and lad against each other from both sides of the garage and they went with Verstappen, which I think you would do all day long. But I think Carlos was a really good match for him.”
Carlos Sainz finished sixth in the 2019 F1 world championship.
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