During the 2024 Spanish Grand Prix, Carlos Sainz indicated that “a decision [on his future] would be taken very soon” despite him having not yet decided on his future team and still being in ongoing discussions with his team.
Despite this uncertainty, however, Sainz stated that he did not want to wait much longer as the matter was “getting to a point where it’s obviously taking space out of my head for quite a few weeks now and months.”
Though almost a month has passed since these comments, Sainz’s future remains uncertain, despite having been linked to several teams, including Sauber, Williams and, most recently, Alpine. It had looked like he was going to sign for the Grove-based team during the Spanish GP weekend, but that was ultimately called off at that stage.
Sainz, who had previously been described as the “cork in the bottle” of the driver market by Haas’ Kevin Magnussen, was asked whether he was aware of the impact of his indecisiveness on the driver market. When the current Ferrari driver indicated that he was aware that there were other drivers waiting to be offered a seat, he stated that he did not think that he was changing the overall outcome of any other driver’s negotiations as all teams were likely to have already finalised their priorities for the next season.
“Yeah, I am conscious of [other drivers waiting], but at the same time, I don’t think it’s going to change because it’s only the timing that I’m changing. I’m probably not changing the outcome of anyone as probably all teams by now have their priorities and their decision-making depending on each scenario.”
However, Sainz also stated that his experience had taught him to prioritise himself and his own career, and as such, he would not rush any decisions if he did not need to. He added that he would make his decision when he needed to and when he had “all of the options on the table”.
“At the same time, this sport and , and take the decision that I need to take whenever I need to take it and whenever I have all of the options on the table and I’m ready to take the decision, and not rush things if I don’t need to.”
Sainz went on to thank the teams for their patience with him throughout the negotiation processes, as well as others on the grid who could not finalise their futures due to the delays that he had caused. However, he stated that he also had to be patient as he was not the only person deciding.
“The teams have been very patient, and I thank them for that. But I’ve also had to be patient — it’s not like I’m the only one here deciding. At the same time, I thank everyone that is having to hang in there while I take the decision.
“What I don’t fully understand is why the market is happening so early this year? Why everyone is so much in a rush when I remember it used to be in the summer break, September, July, when all of those situations started to happen.”
The Spaniard also spoke about the British Grand Prix, which he described as an investment towards improving Ferrari’s form after a string of relatively poor performance linked to the SF-24’s latest floor upgrade.
He stated that while Ferrari would be bringing a small upgrade to the Hungarian Grand Prix, which he hoped would improve their performance, the British Grand Prix has been an investment towards more significantly improving the SF-24’s performance in the medium and longer term.
“I see Silverstone as an investment. We invested probably not optimizing the Silverstone weekend, because you spend FP1 and FP2 comparing floors and not having your teammate as a reference to optimise the car and the car performance, to potentially making yourselves faster in five or six races’ time when we can learn what we can apply from Silverstone into the wind tunnel and apply it for the future.”
“Already for Hungary, we have a small upgrade that hopefully makes things better, but Silverstone was an investment and hopefully improving the car a bit more in the medium and longer term.”
