by VALERIO BARRETTA
Sainz, the loser of the F1 market
During Red Bull’s dominance, only one driver won at least one Grand Prix in each World Championship. However, this was not enough for Carlos Sainz to find a quality alternative to Ferrari. The Spaniard, sacrificed by the Scuderia in the name of Lewis Hamilton, spent the following months dividing himself between the track and the phone with one big goal: to go to a title-winning team. Six months later, it can be said that his mission has failed.
The transition was made official on July 29th Smooth Operator at the Williamswhere he will remain for at least two years. Sainz’s move to wait as long as possible for a seat to become available in Red Bull or Mercedes it was the only possible one for the Spaniard, but in the end it didn’t bear fruit. In Brackley, in fact, they are betting everything on Andrea Kimi Antonelli, and would have offered Sainz a one-year contract at most; to go to Red Bull, however, the internal fighting between the Verstappen family and Christian Horner had to escalate to the point of forcing Super Max to leave. Which didn’t happen, because Helmut Marko guaranteed his permanence in Red Bull, and as long as the Austrian remains in his place Verstappen has one less exit clause.
The Williams Fallback
Sainz believed in his “Plan” until a few days before Spa-Francorchamps. When evidently even the last glimmer of hope vanished, and then he had to settle for what was left: little. With all due respect for Williams’ history, today it is impossible not to define Sainz’s choice as a fallback or at least a risky bet in key-2026. A choice that, given the anomaly of the story, is very well explained: Audi and Alpine, in fact, have experienced and are experiencing days of instability at the highest levels and to the outside world they give the impression of having confused ideas and little harmony; McLaren and Aston Martin have completed the team; Haas has never been taken into consideration by Sainz, RB wants to return to launching young players from the Academy.
James Vowles has always been consistent in his proposal by not making excessive promises, and this played a role in the choice of the Spaniard, who however went more by exclusion than anything else. Of course he cannot say it, but for his 2025 he imagined more attractive prospects. In fact there are not many cases, at least in recent years, of drivers in top form moving from a top team to a bottom team (Damon Hill from Williams to Arrows is perhaps the last important example), and this delicate career transition could have consequences also on Ferrari’s 2024. The brilliant Sainz at the beginning of the season, in fact, was the one who had to prove to the Reds that they were wrong to take Lewis Hamilton instead of him. And it was the one that had to be showcased with the other teams in order to have a competitive car. Every effort, however, was unproductive. And it may not be a coincidence that a driver like Sainz, rightly proud, started very well (3-0 to Charles Leclerc in the first four race weekends) and then lowered the pace. Until running an anonymous and almost disarmed Belgian GP, with the Williams contract already signed. The risk for Ferrari is to find itself in the second part of 2024 with a Sainz no longer angry but resigned to his fatepassive in reading the race (which has always been his strong point), who unlike before knows his future. And he still has to digest it.
#Sainz #Williams #fallback #impact #Ferrari
