Should Carlos Sainz pick Williams or Audi for 2025? Our F1 writers have their say

Carlos Sainz continues to keep his cards close to his chest when it comes to making a call about where he will drive in the 2025 Formula 1 season after his Ferrari exit.

The Spaniard’s shortlist appears to have been reduced to two teams: Williams or Audi, which will join F1 in 2026 while it continues to run under its Sauber guise next year.

But which team should Sainz pick? Our writers give their verdict.

Oleg Karpov: Audi will build a team around him

He says it’s a lottery, but what Carlos Sainz is about to do is more like a bet. Yet choosing between two horses that are currently the slowest in the paddock is not something he would have imagined a year ago.

It’s hard to judge from the outside, and only Sainz himself, and probably his managers, have the full picture of what these horses will be fed to make them run faster in the near future. But it has to be Audi, doesn’t it? 

The key elements are all well-known. It’s a huge project, it’s a major manufacturer, it’s ambition, it’s money, it’s everything.

But it’s also an opportunity for Sainz to finally have the team built around him. Has it occurred to you that every door he has knocked on in recent months has been closed for the same reason?

Red Bull is built around Max Verstappen, and the choice of second driver was also (or mainly?) dictated by the need to keep the Dutchman happy. He’s been a Red Bull driver since he was 16 and it’s very much his team.

Mercedes is not so much George Russell’s team yet, but Toto Wolff won’t be replacing his driver with Sainz. And as things stand, he’s ready to promote Mercedes junior Andrea Kimi Antonelli to F1 instead of taking race winner Sainz.

After all, when Ferrari had to decide who to partner Lewis Hamilton with, they chose Charles Leclerc, a Ferrari driver since he was about four years old. And there’s also no place for Sainz at McLaren because it’s Norris’s team anyway.

Sainz was brought into F1 by Red Bull too, but became one of those talented but unlucky drivers who had the misfortune to come through the system at the same time as Verstappen, and it was probably wise to escape.

But since then, he has never quite found the team that would be fully behind him. And that could be Audi: A huge manufacturer, and an important project for the brand.

In the long term, it sounds like Audi has a better chance of success than Williams, with all due…