After two years away, Alonso will return to Formula One next season to drive for Renault.
Sainz and fellow rookie Max Verstappen (another driver with a racing father) were teammates with Toro Rosso in 2015. That set off a chain reaction that resulted in where both drivers are this year, and where they will be in 2021 and ’22.
After winning four world championships, Vettel had left Red Bull for Ferrari in 2015. So Red Bull promoted Daniil Kvyat from Toro Rosso to become Daniel Ricciardo’s teammate at the senior team.
But Kvyat wasn’t doing a good enough job, and five races into the 2016 season he was sent back to the junior team. Verstappen took his place at Red Bull and promptly won his first race with the team — the Spanish Grand Prix.
Verstappen has been with Red Bull ever since and he has a contract through 2023.
The route taken by Sainz was circuitous. He was still racing for Toro Rosso in 2017 and he was still under long-term contract to Red Bull. But Sainz was not happy because he was not given a shot with Red Bull and he asked to be released so he could move to Renault in 2018.
Sainz spent the end of 2017 and all of 2018 with Renault, only to lose his seat in 2019 to Ricciardo, who had left Red Bull. That triggered Sainz moving to McLaren last year. And then Ferrari, which had also considered Ricciardo, signed Sainz for 2021 and ’22.
How important was Red Bull’s backing for Sainz?
“Probably the most important part of my career because without Red Bull I would not have reached F-1, or it would have been much more difficult to be in F-1,” he said. “I would not have had the chance to prove myself in F-1 for three years in Toro Rosso and then move to Renault. So I owe Red Bull a lot and I have always been grateful to them. I still have a very strong relationship with (racing director) Helmut (Marko) and (team boss) Christian (Horner), and they know that I am very grateful.”
No hard feelings?
“No, not at all, because where I am now is actually the best place that I can be, so I feel that everything in my career happened for a reason,” Sainz added. “And the position I am in now I would not change for anything else.”
Red Bull should have tried harder to hold on to Sainz. Neither Kvyat, Pierre Gasly nor Alex Albon have been capable of getting anywhere near Verstappen on the track. Sainz would have had more success in that category.
Is the relationship with Verstappen better, worse or the same compared to when Sainz and he were teammates?
“It is very similar to the situation with Lando Norris,” Sainz replied. “The situation with Max was tense. But it was always good outside the track. That is what people don’t know or forget. I have always got along well with Max outside the track, and I still get along very well with him outside the track. People probably got the feeling that we had a very big rivalry, which was true. But they thought that that went into not getting along and that is totally not right.”
Sainz and his 19-year-old teammate Norris really hit it off at McLaren last year and that continues this season. Their joking and pranks off the track have made them legends on Netflix’s F-1 series. But they also work well together and they race each other hard on the track.
And that is another reason why Ferrari signed Sainz. He will get along well with his future teammate, Charles Leclerc. Sainz does not make waves or play inter-team politics.
Leclerc, who has a Ferrari contract through 2024, is the team’s golden boy.
But that will not ruffle Sainz, who will just get on with the job he knows he can do at Ferrari, even if it might not be the right team at the right time.