Carlos Sainz pulls back the curtain on almost missing out on F1 after Red Bull's ultimatum

Williams F1's Carlos Sainz has said that Red Bull's ultimatum at the start of the 2014 season could have cost him a shot at Formula 1. The Spanish driver joined the Red Bull Academy in 2010 and competed in several junior categories under the Austrian team.

Sainz, the son of two-time rally champion Carlos Sainz Sr., won the Formula Renault in 2011, in his second year of open-wheel racing. He competed in the British Formula 3 next year but could only muster a P9 in the standings. He had another lackluster year in 2013 in the GP3 series along with his Formula Renault 3.5 endeavors, finishing in P10 and P19 respectively.

While appearing on Allbirds' new series "Cards On The Table" on the Rolling Stone YouTube channel, Sainz spoke about Red Bull threatening to drop him out of the Junior Program which could compromise his dreams of entering F1:

"I remember I was starting to get close to Formula 1. I was in those years, one or two years before making it, Red Bull told me, 'Okay now, next year is your last chance. You go into Formula 2. You either win or there’s no space for you in Formula 1.' I'm 18 years old, 19, so you feel the pressure, no? And then suddenly I realized from always believing I was gonna make it because you're more naive when you're younger, you say, 'I have the talent, I'm winning, I'm gonna make it,' you're more naive, to suddenly realizing I actually might not.

I was lucky to have my dad, daddy was already world champion at the time, to say, 'This is what you're missing to be a world champion,' and I won the next year and I made to Formula 1. But if I wouldn’t have had that switch, and I wouldn’t have had my dad there to help me and to guide me, to just go up here in my preparation, I wouldn’t be where I am now." [08:05]

Carlos Sainz ultimately won the Formula Renault 3.5 with DAMS and debuted on the grid in 2015 with Toro Rosso alongside Max Verstappen.

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Red Bull team principal on rejecting Carlos Sainz for the 2025 seat

In December 2024, Red Bull team principal Christian Horner said that the team prioritized Sergio Perez over Carlos Sainz for a spot in 2025 as he was available on the market for months.

Speaking to Sky Sports F1, the Brit revealed the reason behind not going for the former Ferrari driver and said:

“I think Carlos is a great driver and we’ve seen that obviously this year. Sometimes you’ve got to look at all the various criteria and dynamics, and at the point that we extended Checo’s contract, you have to remember he was second in the world championship and finishing on podiums in the first four out of five races.”

Sainz ultimately joined Williams F1 but Red Bull terminated Perez's contract at the end of the 2024 season in favor of Liam Lawson. Despite being part of the Austrian team's academy, the 30-year-old never raced for the senior team since he left Toro Rosso in late 2017.