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Analysis | Sainz and Ferrari negotiations good news for Red Bull
- Ludo van Denderen
While Charles Leclerc is no doubt overjoyed with his upcoming, much-improved contract with Ferrari, it is far from a certainty that Carlos Sainz will take up the offer made to him. The Spaniard could reportedly sign a one-year deal, while Sainz wants to commit for two seasons. If the current stalemate eventually leads to a break-up, it should be good news for another team: Red Bull Racing.
2024 will be fairly unique in Formula 1: all 20 drivers who finished the previous season will then be back at the start line for another year - and all with the same teams as in '23. How different things are undoubtedly going to be 12 months later? The contracts of as many as nine drivers will (in principle) expire after the coming season, making a big seat swap inevitable.
Sainz was unlucky in '23
At Ferrari, Leclerc and Sainz are still without a contract for '24, but according to the Gazzetta dello Sport, the Italian team plans to extend the pair's commitments. Leclerc would put his signature on a mega five-year contract that will see him earn €50 million a year. Sainz is less well off: for the time being, Ferrari only wants to sign him for one more season, probably at a significantly lower salary than Leclerc's.
Sainz has made no secret of his desire to stay with the Scuderia for longer, but will again have found that Ferrari has a very clear preference for his teammate. Even after a season in which it was Sainz who gave the Italians their only Grand Prix victory of the season. It was due to sheer bad luck in the last few weeks - remember the detached manhole cover in Las Vegas - that Sainz saw a fourth place in the championship slip out of his hands. After the race in Abu Dhabi, the Spaniard dropped back to seventh place, again behind Leclerc, whom Sainz had basically had in his pocket all year.
It remains remarkable: no matter how Sainz performs, Leclerc remains Ferrari's darling. The offer of a one-year contract only fuels this thought even more. Sainz should really have a good think about himself: should he really want to stay longer at Ferrari at all - where everything is therefore focused on Leclerc - or would the 29-year-old not be better off trying to find shelter with a team that does value him.
Does Red Bull offer a solution for Sainz?
So his luck is that after '24, the necessary contracts will expire, for example at Red Bull Racing. Carlos Sainz should be an ideal candidate to replace Sergio Perez as Max Verstappen's teammate. Sainz is younger, comes from the Austrian team's training and knows what it is like to function alongside Verstappen. They made their debut together at Toro Rosso, in a year where there were some tensions between them at times. Yet above all, there was and is the necessary respect between the two men and a renewed collaboration could become very fruitful.
After all, Sainz knows how to win Grands Prix, he knows how to deal with the enormous pressure of a top team thanks to Ferrari, and so by now he also knows what to do when a team's focus is almost entirely on his teammate. If for some reason Verstappen cannot win during a race, Sainz, with the right equipment, is perfectly capable of doing the honours.
An additional advantage is that Sainz will be 30 years old at the start of the '25 season. Sergio Perez (35) and Daniel Ricciardo (35) are significantly older. In other words: Red Bull Racing would be wise to follow closely the contract woes between Sainz and Ferrari. It could just be that an ideal successor to Perez could be brought in.