Carlos Sainz Jnr’s rivals say its “difficult to understand” why he’s taking so long to decide which team to drive for next year.
The Ferrari driver admitted the deliberations over his destination for 2025 are taking up a lot of his time outside of race weekends.
Sainz has known since February he will lose his Ferrari drive to Lewis Hamilton next year. He is believed to be considering Williams, Alpine and Sauber as potential destinations next year. The latter will become Audi’s works teams in 2025.
He said the negotiations are taking up “quite a lot” of his time between races. The British Grand Prix is the third event on consecutive weekends.
“Mondays to Thursday, before I arrive to the track, there’s a lot of phone calls, a lot of time spent on the phone, meetings with my management team but also with the teams that I’m talking to, trying to understand and trying to have a full picture of the situation,” Sainz told media including RaceFans today. “And it’s probably quite stressful and time consuming.
“Instead of maybe being able to fully disconnect and recharge, obviously your mind is still somewhere else and thinking about your future and wondering what will it be? So not an ideal situation.
“At the same time, when I arrive on Thursday I feel like I’m able to perform as soon as I get into an engineering meeting. As soon as I put the helmet on, I feel 100% in the car. And I think the Austria weekend kind of proves that I’m still at a very high level and performing at one of my best seasons in Formula 1.
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“But as I’ve always said, I’m not going to be a hypocrite, I believe there’s always more performance in being in a stable contract situation than being where I’m at now. So I’m never going to deny myself on that [which] I’ve said always.”
Today Haas confirmed Oliver Bearman will join them as a new driver last year, which means at least one member of the current field will lose their seat at the end of the year. Several teams are believed to be waiting for Sainz to decide his next move before committing to their line-up for next year.
Sainz added he’s “decided not to talk any more about my future until I take the decision.”
Zhou Guanyu, one of the drivers who is without a contract for next year, is mystified why Sainz it taking so long to make his mind up.
“It’s difficult to understand just because it’s not that difficult to make his…
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