Carlos Sainz says he had been completely confident of remaining at Ferrari in 2025 and beyond and that the news he was being dropped in favour of Lewis Hamilton came entirely out of the blue.
“I was in the middle of negotiations with Ferrari,” Sainz told Sky Sports F1 at Zandvoort last weekend as he remembered the pivotal moment. “Everything seemed to be going in the right direction."
His team mate Charles Leclerc had already signed a multi-year extension in his own contract with the team during the pre-season, and it was expected that a similar outcome for Sainz was a mere formality.
Instead, news broke that Lewis Hamilton had activated a break clause in his contract with Mercedes and would be headed to Maranello for next season, leaving Sainz as the loser in the game of high speed musical chairs.
"Suddenly this news arrived to me and it was completely unexpected," he recalled. “A huge turnaround in the way that suddenly my career was going to plan out."
Sainz had other things to think about when the season got underway, suffering appendicitis in Jeddah that forced him to miss the Saudi Arabian GP, but bouncing back with victory in the very next race in Australia.
“Maybe the most particular thing of me and Ferrari is that there’s actually nothing wrong with me and Ferrari,” he noted, saying that he remained on very good terms with Leclerc and team principal Fred Vasseur.
“My relationship with Fred, my relationship with Charles, my own track performances - everything is actually going smoothly. That’s why I was so convinced and so sure I was gonna continue there.
“But a seven-time world champion decided that he wanted to go to Ferrari, and in that case I couldn’t do nothing against it. I had to accept it very quickly.”
All of that made him a valuable property on the driver market - but many of the next year's top seats had already been snapped up, leaving Sainz with a diminishing number of options as the weeks went on.
Sainz admitted that it had been tough to adjust to "having to deal with the decision with negotiating, talking to all these teams that I could potentially go for.
“The market was incredibly dynamic," he continued. "Every day [there was] something new about even top teams like Red Bull or Mercedes, but also midfield teams like Williams."
In the end the decision came down to a choice between Williams and Sauber, with its project to become the Audi factory team in 2026 under Sainz' former boss at Maranello, Mattia Binotto.
“It’s not secret that I was talking to all of them," he said. "In the end Williams since the beginning had always gave me the trust. I see a team that has really developed well over the last couple of years."
Surprisingly Sainz opted to join Williams alongside Alex Albon, which is currently rebuilding under James Vowles who has been team principal at Grove since the start of last season.
"I’ve always had a very strong connection, very good relationship with both James and the investment group that now is in Williams," Sainz explained.
"There's very clear leadership with a very clear goal with a very clear vision, plenty of investment in the project, which I think nowadays is obviously fundamental.
"It’s a team that I think I can help to move forward in the future," he added. "It motivates me a driver to go there to such a historical team - like I did maybe back then with McLaren - and try to help them move forward.”
For now, Sainz future seat at Williams will be in the hands of a rookie driver in Monza with Franco Colapinto taking over from Logan Sargeant who has been dropped from the line-up for the rest of the season.
Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter
