Quote:
Originally Posted by ///M Power-Belgium
Checo will get his 2025 Red Bull contract . So (hopefully)! Sainz can get LEW's Merc seat .
It's still not sure (IF)! Toto Wolff is interested to get Sainz at Mercedes.
Otherwise Sainz won't get a seat in 2025 and Audi is for 2026 
Shame on you Ferrari !  |
Talking about kingmakers: Verstappen gets the 'right of first refusal' for the vacated Mercedes seat. Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1, the Mercedes-Benz Group and INEOS are eager to get him and got the financial ressources to meet Verstappen's demands for a shock move. With the Verstappens being disgruntled about Horner and as Newey has made up his mind to leave RBR because of Horner, there is momentum that was unfathomable in 2021 - for all involved on both sides, this is their brief 'window of opportunity' to strike.
Could also be that, as variant, with the RB20/RB21 in 2025 still best adapted to the current regs & rules, Verstappen commits to start racing for Mercedes from 2026 onwards (instead of from next season onwards). But it seems more likely that he will be donning the Mercedes track suit already in 2025 (as well as a 1971 24 Hours of Le Mans winner who set a 5000 km distance record, with a Dutch team mate, in a Porsche 917, that would stand for 39 years).
Sainz is just one of the (way cheaper) spare wheels of Wolff & C°. Kimi Antonelli got better talent cards and Merc time upon his sleeve for a long-term future at Mercedes, than Sainz. But Kimi is still 17 and will likely get prepared for a year or so at another team sporting a Merc engine. Carlos is 29.
If Sainz would get the available Merc seat, it will be for 2025 only and merely because Verstappen would have opted out for 2025. Sainz was very close to signing, but a supervening event abruptly stalled that plan: almost certainly that event was the Verstappens approaching Wolff with an 'invitation to treat'.
