Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz will leave the team at the end of 2024 to make way for Lewis Hamilton. It will be a campaign in which he hopes to be able to get some great satisfaction and be able to earn a good seat for 2025.
The presentation of the SF-24 was bittersweet for Carlos Sainz. On the one hand, the Spaniard did not hide his enthusiasm for the start of the new season, hopefully better than the previous one for him and for the team.
On the other side, his moderate disappointment certainly did not go unnoticed given the awareness of starting the 2024 championship will be his last as a Ferrari driver, given that he will be replaced by seven-time World Champion Lewis Hamilton next year.
During a media session following the presentation of the new Red, Carlos Sainz spoke about the next season in which he will look for a seat for 2025, in the knowledge that he has already demonstrated his value over the years already spent in F1 since making his debut with Scuderia Toro Rosso at the 2015 Australian Grand Prix.
“Honestly, I don’t need a season to prove or to show to anyone what I am capable of,” Sainz said following Ferrari’s launch.
“I’d think that in nine years in Formula 1, and especially the last three being at a top team like Ferrari, everyone has more or less seen what I am capable of.”
He later stated that he has not yet fully evaluated the options available to him, even if Stake F1 is indicated as the main alternative for the Spaniard, awaiting the arrival of Audi in 2026.
The driver from Madrid expressed the hope that the new SF-24 may have finally taken a step forward in race trim, the real Achilles’ heel of the SF-23.
Although Sainz was the only non-Red Bull winner last year, tyre management issues and a general lack of pace on a Sunday afternoon generally saw both he and teammate Charles Leclerc drop back in races, even if things did improve towards the end of the campaign.
“With a better race car, we can do better races, better strategies, have better tyre management and do better overtakes because last year, I was having to defend my position, and I did a lot of good defending, but not enough good overtaking.
“I am looking forward to it and seeing what we can extract from the car this year.”
