Carlos Sainz Jnr says he hopes to secure a seat on the 2025 grid “sooner rather than later” following his Australian Grand Prix win.
The Ferrari driver is competing in his final season with the team, who have signed Lewis Hamilton to take his place in 2025.
Hamilton’s arrival has left Sainz out of a seat for next season and he is yet to sign a contract with a team to remain on the grid next year. Sainz is the only driver other than Max Verstappen to win a grand prix over the last 21 rounds and says he is in active discussions with many teams about a 2025 drive.
“I’ve been talking, obviously, to a few, because that’s what my management team and myself should do when I don’t have a job for next year yet,” he said. “So we’re talking to pretty much all of them.
“It’s just a matter of obviously going more into detail and seeing the more realistic options and what are the best options for me for my future. I don’t have any news for you or anything to say here today. The only thing I would say is that obviously it’s time now to speed up a bit everything and hopefully we can get it sorted sooner rather than later.”
Despite Ferrari disrupting Red Bull’s winning start to the season, Sainz is not convinced they have drawn level with the world champions in performance.
“It’s true to say that in Australia we looked very strong, but I think normally in these cases we just need to take the average of the first few races and I think the average is still a couple of tenths off the Red Bull,” he said.
“We need probably an upgrade, especially in tracks like Suzuka, to fight them. I think the job that the team has done this year is extremely good because the car is a very good step forward. It’s just we need more of the same if we want to go for the wins in tracks like maybe Japan.
“There is no big, big upgrade coming here. We have a very small thing in the car at the rear, but it will come later in the season and I hope that it’s another good step in the same direction.”
Sainz won the Australian Grand Prix despite not being at full fitness following emergency appendix surgery which put him out of the race in Jeddah. Almost four weeks on from the operation he feels almost fully recovered.
“I’ve been riding my bike this week, I stayed in Australia for a week and started going back to the gym,” he continued. “I’m still obviously not lifting heavy numbers like I used to do in the past, but at least I can get my training done…
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