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I have no power over Toro Rosso deal - Sainz

Carlos Sainz says he has "no power" over whether he stayed at Toro Rosso or moved to another team as Red Bull has contractual options on him.

The Spaniard has impressed this season and Red Bull team principal Christian Horner confirmed on Wednesday the team has taken up its option to keep him at Toro Rosso in 2017. While Sainz insists he wants to stay at Toro Rosso, he also made it clear he would have had no choice in the matter if he wanted to move elsewhere.

“In the end it’s not my decision," Sainz said. "So if Red Bull wants me, even if I don’t want to - but I want to stay in Toro Rosso, of course - I have no power over the decision at all. If Red Bull wants me, they have the contract, they have the option and they execute it and I have to stay.

"So I don’t know if there were other possibilities, to be honest I don’t want to care too much about it. I just know that Red Bull really wants me to be with them.

"Yes it’s true that the senior team is a bit too crowded at the moment so I will have to wait, but I’m convinced that if I keep doing good races they will make me a seat and they will find an option for me. I just need to keep doing what I’m doing, focusing on myself, getting strong results and opportunities will come.”

And Sainz says there are still a number of years until he will be completely free to make his own choices about his future.

“I think I have another two or three years where they can keep exercising this option. As Helmut Marko said not that long ago, of course I can leave the program and everything but they would need to pay a lot of money to get me and obviously he’s always going to execute this option if he can. Especially if he likes me like I think he does.

"So at the moment I don’t have much of an opinion or a reaction to this. For me to have the confidence of a character like Helmut Marko - who we all know how tough he is on everything - for one more year on everything so early in the season is great confidence.

"It gives me a big boost also for the rest of the season to know I am quite safe in such a tough program and I think from now on I can drive a bit more calmly knowing that next year I will be in a team for sure, like Toro Rosso.”

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.