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Sainz and his administration have been engaged in discussions with each F1 crew that has a gap for subsequent season, when he can be changed at Ferrari by Lewis Hamilton.
Till Fernando Alonso re-signed with Aston Martin final week, this left Sainz weighing up potential choices at eight squads, as beforehand solely Ferrari and McLaren had their 2025 line-ups locked in.
This choice is headlined by the potential of Sainz going to Pink Bull as a substitute for Sergio Perez or if Max Verstappen makes a shock selection to depart F1’s present finest squad because of the continuing Pink Bull administration conflict and the Christian Horner scandal.
Pink Bull, through Marko, was publicly courting the Sainz camp at Suzuka final day trip and there Marko additionally claimed “Audi is making strain” on the 2025 driver market.
This follows the long-held understanding that Audi had been eyeing signing Sainz forward of its F1 entry in 2026 with its Sauber takeover, because the 29-year-old already had hyperlinks to the producer by means of his father’s Dakar Rally outings in its RS Q e-tron equipment since 2022, together with victory within the 2024 occasion.
However forward of this weekend’s returning Chinese language Grand Prix, Marko added one other intriguing factor to essentially the most high-profile confirmed 2025 driver contract saga to date on this early foolish season agitating.
In an interview with Austrian newspaper Kleine Zeitung, Marko mentioned of Sainz: “We’re speaking to him, he is having his strongest season in F1, however he has a really profitable supply from Audi that we won’t match or beat.
Liam Lawson, Reserve Driver, Visa Money App RB F1 Workforce, with Helmut Marko, Advisor, Pink Bull Racing, Peter Bayer, CEO, RB F1 Workforce
Picture by: Andrew Ferraro / Motorsport Images
“However we all know him from the Toro Rosso days, even again then he drove with Max [in 2015 and early 2016].
“However it actually harm him again then after we backed Verstappen at Pink Bull and never him.”
The ultimate line is a reference to Pink Bull quickly selling Verstappen to its senior crew in early 2016, with Sainz happening to depart the Pink Bull fold for Renault late within the 2017 marketing campaign – one thing the now Ferrari driver pushed for.
Elsewhere within the interview, Marko revealed that Verstappen publicly backing him throughout the varied twists within the Pink Bull administration conflict early in 2024 had been “a very massive signal of loyalty” that he “completely do not take as a right, particularly at the present time”.
Marko additionally sought to make clear current rumours concerning the driving force line-up at RB given Daniel Ricciardo’s poor begin to the marketing campaign and his profitable 2023 harm substitute, Liam Lawson, nonetheless with out a full-time F1 drive.
Concerning reviews of a potential Ricciardo/Lawson in-season swap which have emerged within the New Zealand and Italian press in current weeks, Marko mentioned: “With Liam Lawson as a reserve driver, we clearly have a powerful driver within the crew who’s contractually entitled to drive for an additional crew if he would not get a cockpit with us in 2025,” he continued.
“On this respect, it will after all be thrilling for us if we may see him in Components 1 this 12 months to get a fair clearer image.
“However it’s a fancy subject, so we’ll should see how issues progress.”
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