Williams team principal James Vowles hopes to cut a deal with Ferrari to allow Carlos Sainz to join them for the post-season test at Yas Marina Circuit after the Abu Dhabi GP finale.
Sainz learned before the start of the 2024 campaign that he was being released by Ferrari at the end of the year to make way for the arrival of seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton at Maranello from 2025.
Since then the Spaniard was forced to miss the race in Saudi Arabia after having emergency surgery for appendicitis, only to bounce back and take victory in the following event in Melbourne.
But that didn't change the fact that he's still out of the seat in December. Last month he finally confirmed that he would move to Williams in a multi-year deal, meaning he will race alongside Alex Albon.
While Albon has managed to finish in the top ten on three occasions this season, Vowles last week made the decision to axe Logan Sargeant on the other side of the garage and call up F2 driver Franco Colapinto as a replacement.
Sainz technically remains under contract to Ferrari until the end of the year,
meaning his first time in the Williams is likely to be in pre-season testing and then back in Melbourne for the first race of 2025.
But Vowles is hopeful that he can persuade Ferrari boss Fred Vasseur to release Sainz early and allow him to take part with Williams in the young drivers test that immediately follows the final race of the season in December.
“We still have to agree terms with Ferrari, he’s under contract at Ferrari until the end of 2024,” Vowles told the media last week, as quoted by RacingNews365. “However I do hope to see him in the car in Abu Dhabi.”
Ferrari has extended simular considerations to rival teams in the past, such as letting Kimi Raikkonen take part in the 2018 end-of-season test with Sauber after Ferrari promoted Charles Leclerc into its full-time driver line-up.
Unfortunately that would mean Colapinto would be ruled out of taking part in the young drivers test, where an experienced driver handles tyre development work for Pirelli and a rookie gets a chance to run the other car.
But the rules mandate that the rookie can only have taken part in no more than than two Grand Prix races. Colapinto will have completed nine races by the end of the season after replacing Sargeant from Monza onwards.
Vowles is hoping that signing a big name like Sainz will motivate and inspire Williams as it seeks to return to former glories. It's also a financial coup for the small operation in terms of attracting sponsors.
“The real commercial benefit of all F1 teams is just performance,” he said. “If you make your car quicker, or if you have drivers that push your car, or drivers pushing each other and pushing the car, that in turn provides you championship position and sponsorship income.
“That is the secret sauce of how to run a F1 team," he explained. "Fundamentally you treat it like a startup. You've got to put your finances into a driver - or two drivers, really - in a way that you know will be pushing the team forward.
“It's not like you immediately, overnight, have the phone ringing and someone's offering you 20 million, that's not how it takes place," he stated. "But it is part of the journey that makes its way through.
“What I can say is we have existing sponsors that we've been talking to for six months. For them it may or may not be the extra trigger that pushes them across the line.
"But it's not that it's suddenly you take all your deals and you up them by a percentage fundamentally," he insisted.
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