Fellow racer puzzled by Carlos Sainz's indecision in choosing a team for 2025

Sauber's F1 driver Zhou Guanyu expressed his confusion as to why Carlos Sainz was unable to decide which team to join in the future. He feels that the decision should not be too hard for the Spaniard.

Before the 2024 F1 season began, Ferrari announced that they would hire Lewis Hamilton in 2025 to replace Carlos Sainz. This forced the Spaniard to start finding a seat in a new team before the end of this year. Since he was considered a competent driver on the grid, many teams like Audi, Williams, and even Alpine reportedly approached him with a seat.

Carlos Sainz, however, has not yet decided which team he will join in the future. As the 2024 F1 season approaches, he has somewhat become a cork in the bottle, preventing the entire driver market silly season from unfolding.

Speaking to the media before the 2024 F1 British GP, Zhou Guanyu addressed Sainz's indecisiveness. He explained how the entire grid is now waiting for the Ferrari driver to confirm his future team, after which the driver market will ramp up even more. The Chinese driver also talked about his own future in F1, saying that he is also exploring his options with different teams. He said (via pitdebrief):

“We’re all waiting for Carlos to make decisions but we are continuing to speak to different teams to understand where I’m going. It’s clear [Sainz] is kind of priority in the market now but things remain open and at this point, I still feel confident that I can have a chance somewhere,” Zhou said.

Coming back to Carlos Sainz, Zhou Guanyu said that he was unable to understand why it was such a difficult decision for the Ferrari driver.

“Honestly, I feel it’s a bit difficult to understand, just because it’s not that difficult to make this decision, you know? You’re not really making a decision of a team maybe fighting for World Championship. You’re making a decision between, let’s say, that are mid-runner teams, depends where you want to head off. And yeah, I don’t know what he’s thinking, but we’re just waiting for him, nothing more,” he added.

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Alpine's new advisor surprised with Carlos Sainz being a free agent for so long

Alpine's newly hired advisor and former team principal, Flavio Briatore, was surprised to see that Carlos Sainz was still a free agent in the driver market.

While Audi and Williams were some of the first teams to approach Sainz, Alpine joined the party quite late. They started chasing the Ferrari driver after Briatore arrived and advised the team to do so.

As per "as.com", Briatore publicly expressed the French team's interest in Carlos Sainz, even though he understood that Alpine's top priority was to improve their car. He then expressed his surprise to see that no other team was able to lock the F1 driver.

“There is a lot of interest, we’ll see in the coming days. Although right now for Alpine, the driver doesn’t make a difference, we have to get the car right first. Incredibly, he [Sainz] is still free, we are all willing to have him on the team and we will do what we can,” Briatore said.