Five races ago, Carlos Sainz admitted his future was taking too long to sort out and he didn’t want to wait any longer to finalize his next career move because he was tired of the time and energy it was taking up.
It was a surprise that it even dragged out as long as the Spanish Grand Prix in June was a surprise, amid growing confidence at Williams that it could attract the Ferrari race-winner to join its rebuilding project after a months-long courtship.
Momentum had really started growing around Monaco, when James Vowles willing to make his interest public. At that stage, there had been little serious talk linking Sainz with such a move. The Spaniard’s management team had also indicated it was a project that attracted them soon after that, but that nothing was going to be ruled out.
Offers were on the table from Williams, Alpine and Stake (to become Audi), and all had a variety of pros and cons that needed considering. But understandably, part of Sainz’s reluctance to commit early this season was the ongoing vacancy at Mercedes for 2025 – one that still remains unresolved – and the uncertainty regarding the Red Bull line-up.
Not only was Sergio Perez out of contract at the end of the year, Max Verstappen’s future was the center of so much debate due to the situation surrounding Christian Horner and Jos Verstappen. As unlikely as a move appeared to be, it was volatile enough behind the scenes for a spell to just keep things on ice.
It took another five weeks to resolve, but Sainz has finally put pen to paper on his next move, and it is to Grove.
There are multiple factors at play, but the leadership of Vowles and commitment of the Williams board was crucial. It might be a long way from winning races, and there are no guarantees when there is so much work ahead, but Williams is the team with the clearest direction and most stability right now.
Alpine has just announced a major change in its set-up and will have a new team principal after the summer break, and the same is effectively true at Audi given Mattia Binotto’s arrival that was announced just a week ago.
Williams has been recruiting heavily, has a youthful but impressive boss in Vowles – who is focused very much on future success and has a set plan in place for how to get there – and has that all-important Mercedes power unit from 2026 that is regularly referenced as being the expected strongest engine.
Now 29, Sainz’s experience will be crucial to helping Williams move further forward. He’s seen works teams at Renault and Ferrari, and the early stages of the McLaren rebuild. But he’s also not going to be asked to perform miracles, and can realistically hope he’s in occasional podium contention as early as his second year with the team.
But even as I started to write this piece, Sainz was still going to have an eye on what happened at Red Bull. The decision to give Perez a two-year contract two months ago appeared to close that door, but his form since had led to huge scrutiny around that seat.
Perez has sometimes been an enigma, often responding impressively to adversity and pulling himself back from the brink at times when questions were being asked about his future. As the likes of Alex Albon and Pierre Gasly can attest, that is not easily done alongside Verstappen.
Even within this season it has been seen, as he was doing exactly as he needed to early on, but then totally dropped away from Miami onwards. Suzuka, for example, is deemed a Verstappen circuit, one where his abilities shine through in terms of lap time. And yet, over one lap, Perez was within 0.066s of his teammate in the fight for pole position, and backed him up with another very solid second place.
The run since the European season started, however, has been baffling. Eighth in Imola, two retirements after crashes in Monaco and Canada, eighth in Spain, seventh in Austria (after finishing eighth in the Sprint), 17th in Britain (after crashing heavily in qualifying), seventh in Hungary and seventh again (after George Russell’s disqualification) in Belgium.
It’s a total points haul of 28 across eight rounds, or an average of just 3.5 points per round.
The enigma continued across the last two races, where Perez crashed heavily again in qualifying in Hungary but recovered excellently in the race, only to turn a front-row start in a clean, dry race in Belgium into eighth on the road.
After Austria, senior sources inside Red Bull confirmed a decision would need to be made on Perez’s future in the summer break if his form did not pick up. On Saturday night in Hungary, the indications were that the decision had all but been made, but only today – after Helmut Marko joined Horner and the rest of the team in the UK – was anything finalized.
And what was finalized was a decision to stick by the Mexican.
A lack of certainty in any replacement might have played a major factor – Daniel Ricciardo has been solid but unspectacular for most of this season, Liam Lawson is massively inexperienced and Yuki Tsunoda for some reason doesn’t come in for serious consideration – but Perez’s ability to respond to adversity is also likely to have played a role.
He has won previously in Baku and Singapore – two of the next four venues – and was second in Monza last year, too. Could Red Bull guarantee better results would be delivered at those tracks by anyone currently available that it dropped in the car mid-season?
Verstappen is clearly the priority, and Red Bull’s greatest asset. Keeping Perez or replacing him would have been a gamble either way, but the inaction – unusual for Red Bull, it must be said – suggests it can stomach losing one championship as long as it wins the drivers’ title.
The gap to McLaren in the constructors’ championship is 42 points and closing fast, but Verstappen’s advantage over Lando Norris continues to grow and now stands at 78 points. Three full race victories, including the fastest lap point, with 10 rounds to go looks a comfortable margin.
Red Bull has been trying to stabilize again after a period of infighting at the top earlier in the season, and the less radical route has been chosen. One that retains stability, and means the only changes in the coming races should be to the car itself.
Perez has wanted to move on from speculation for a number of weeks, and Red Bull has certainly allowed him to do so over the summer break with a quick decision. But he will need to repay the enormous show of faith just as quickly after the summer break if he wants to avoid the same old scrutiny returning at the end of August.