Sainz and his administration have been engaged in discussions with each F1 group that has a gap for subsequent season when he shall be changed at Ferrari by Lewis Hamilton.
Till Fernando Alonso re-signed with Aston Martin final week, this left Sainz weighing up doable choices at eight squads, as beforehand solely Ferrari and McLaren had their 2025 line-ups locked in.
This choice is headlined by the potential for 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 on account of the continued Pink Bull administration battle and the Christian Horner scandal.
Pink Bull, by way of Marko, was publicly courting the Sainz camp at Suzuka final outing and there Marko additionally claimed “Audi is making stress” 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 aspect to essentially the most high-profile confirmed 2025 driver contract saga to this point early on this foolish season.
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 Staff, with Helmut Marko, Guide, Pink Bull Racing, Peter Bayer, CEO, RB F1 Staff
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 group 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 numerous twists within the Pink Bull administration battle early in 2024 had been “a extremely huge signal of loyalty” that he “completely do not take without any consideration, particularly nowadays”.
Marko additionally sought to make clear latest rumours concerning the motive force line-up at RB given Daniel Ricciardo’s poor begin to the marketing campaign and his profitable 2023 damage substitute, Liam Lawson, nonetheless with no full-time F1 drive.
Concerning reviews of a doable Ricciardo/Lawson in-season swap which have emerged within the New Zealand and Italian press in latest weeks, Marko mentioned: “With Liam Lawson as a reserve driver, we clearly have a robust driver within the group who’s contractually entitled to drive for one more group if he would not get a cockpit with us in 2025,” he continued.
“On this respect, it might after all be thrilling for us if we may see him in Formulation 1 this yr to get a fair clearer image.
“However it’s a posh situation, so we’ll need to see how issues progress.”