MELBOURNE, Australia — Christian Horner has dropped the biggest hint yet that Australian Grand Prix winner Carlos Sainz is in the frame for a Red Bull ride next year.
With Lewis Hamilton leaving Mercedes to join Ferrari in 2025, Sainz is off the track at the end of this season and represents one of the key players in the driver market.
He has already been linked with Mercedes, Aston Martin and Sauber (which will become Audi’s works team in 2026), but Red Bull is also a viable destination, with Sergio Perez set to expire at the end of this year and the future of Max Verstappen looks less certain after turmoil among the team’s top management at the start of 2024.
Red Bull has multiple options for 2025 if it needs to replace one of its drivers, including Daniel Ricciardo and Yuki Tsunoda who currently drive for its junior team, RB.
However, Ricciardo’s slow start to the year and apparent reluctance to promote Honda-backed Tsunoda within Red Bull means Sainz, who won Sunday’s Australian Grand Prix just two weeks after an appendectomy, is also in controversy.
“Yuki is a very fast driver, we know that, but I think we want to feel the best pairing we can at Red Bull Racing and sometimes you have to look outside the pool as well,” said Red Bull team principal Horner.
“You had a very quick jobless driver win today. The market is pretty fluid with some drivers.”
Horner joked that Sainz appears to be the only driver capable of beating Red Bull at the moment after ending Verstappen’s 10-race winning streak in Singapore last year and doing the same on a nine-race streak on Sunday in Melbourne.
“I mean, Carlos is the only driver who has beaten Red Bull, so he seems to be our enemy,” Horner said.
Sainz made his F1 debut in 2015 with Red Bull’s youth team, then known as Toro Rosso, but left for Renault in 2017 after Red Bull promoted Verstappen to its senior team ahead of him in 2016.
Pressed on whether Sainz could return to the Red Bull fold, Horner added: “Look, I mean, based on a performance like that, you couldn’t rule out any possibility.
“I think you just want to take your time and obviously Czeko [Perez] settled today. He made a very good start to the season as well, so we’re not in a desperate rush.”