Vowles surprised Red Bull, Mercedes didn’t take Sainz

Williams team principal James Vowles says he is surprised Red Bull and Mercedes both passed up the opportunity to sign Carlos Sainz, after the Spaniard agreed to join Williams from 2025 onwards.

Sainz has signed a multi-year contract to race for Williams when he leaves Ferrari at the end of this season to make way for Lewis Hamilton. Hamilton’s move was confirmed in early February and Mercedes has yet to finalize his replacement, while Red Bull has weathered ongoing uncertainty over Sergio Perez’s seat, leaving Vowles surprised that neither team attempted to secure Sainz's services.

“I rate him as one of the top four drivers, if not at times the number two driver on the grid,” Vowles said. “Why wouldn’t you want that in your stable?

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“My view of things is, fundamentally, competitors are getting closer and closer, so the marginal difference the driver can make… and I don’t just mean in performance terms. Look at Carlos and look at every team he has been in – they have improved significantly. And I get why, after spending the last nine months talking to him at least weekly, if not daily, in truth. Carlos is a performance machine. He absolutely will do everything it takes within his power to not transform just himself, but the team around him at the same time.

“And that’s powerful, that’s worth more than what he can drive the car at, that’s worth that you move the team forward at the same amount. So when you’re in Red Bull’s position when you’ve got a constructors’ championship at risk, it’s always a hard decision but yes, I would have Carlos alongside Max [Verstappen].

“If you’re at Mercedes, it’s a hard choice, they’ve swayed between not being competitive, in which case it makes sense to invest in the future, to being very competitive… now it’s a harder decision as to whether you invest in known entities or unknown.

“But that said, if Mercedes have made that decision, they have far more information than I do, it’s more than likely they’re confident in the direction they’ll be traveling in. Whether that be Max or Kimi [Antonelli], I’m unsure, but my point is they’re not fools, they’ve made the decision sensibly.

“If Red Bull have decided to do this, again, there’s reasons behind it I won’t be aware of, they’re multiple world champions and they don’t take decisions lightly. But I was surprised.”

Vowles admitted he wasn’t confident the deal was going to happen until Sainz signed the contract, but also suggested there are no exit clauses designed to allow the Spaniard to move to the likes of Mercedes or Red Bull in the near future.

“So there are precisely 10 people in the world that know what the interior in the contract holds," he said. "The Carlos camp know, and I know, what’s inside it. Anything you’ve read on the internet is speculation, and that is it.

“The message that it’s ’25 and ’26 and beyond did not come from myself, that came from Carlos. He wanted it to be abundantly clear to all of you, to the world, that he is committed, and this is where he wants to be.”