"You've had a very fast unemployed driver win today's race”: Christian Horner hints at Red Bull's interest in Carlos Sainz

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner weighed in on Carlos Sainz's chances racing for the defending world champions in the aftermath of the Spaniard's win at the 2024 Australian Grand Prix.

The Spanish driver impressed everyone with his performance during the entire Australian GP weekend, qualifying P2 behind Max Verstappen and eventually winning the race on Sunday. The Ferrari driver had sat out the previous race in Jeddah due to appendix surgery and was not at peak fitness heading into Melbourne.

Speaking with the media after the race, the Red Bull team boss was full of praise for Carlos Sainz and discussed the possibility of the Spaniard racing alongside Verstappen in 2025. He said (via The Race):

"Based on a performance like that, you couldn’t rule any possibility out. We want to field the best pairing that we can and sometimes you’ve got to look outside the pool. You've had a very fast unemployed driver win today's race so the market is reasonably fluid with certain drivers"

The Ferrari driver also discussed his future during the post-race press conference, saying that he didn't mind if people in the paddock found him "underrated":

"I think people that know me or have shared a team with me or people that have worked with me, know me and I don't feel underrated. Then, other people that maybe don't have an insight and don't know as much about this sport, if they want to underrate me, I'm fine with that."

Carlos Sainz chimes in on Ferrari potentially closing the gap to Red Bull

Carlos Sainz stated that the Italian team was slowly closing the gap to Red Bull as was evident from the performance in the races in Bahrain and Jeddah.

As quoted by the aforementioned source, the Spanish driver said the Austrian team wasn't out of reach:

"I think our car really worked really well this weekend. But I think it's going to be tough to keep it up there in every track until we bring an upgrade to close that gap that we saw in Bahrain and Jeddah."

He added:

"But around Australia, from lap one, it felt like a race-winning car. And even if Red Bull were also quick and were on pole, that 59 in quali wasn't out of reach for us."

It will be interesting to see if Carlos Sainz and Ferrari can continue to challenge Max Verstappen and Red Bull throughout the year in every track layout.