CARLOS SAINZ ‘CAN’T GO’ TO RED BULL WITH F1 2025 MOVE THAT ‘MAKES SENSE’ REVEALED

Carlos Sainz should jump at the chance to join Mercedes for the F1 2025 season, with a direct swap with Lewis Hamilton making “more sense” than becoming Max Verstappen’s team-mate at Red Bull.

That is the view of Nelson Piquet Jr, who is convinced that Mercedes will return to the top sooner than later.

Carlos Sainz advised against Red Bull amid Audi, Mercedes F1 2025 options

Despite learning over the winter that he will be dropped by Ferrari to make way for Hamilton at the end of 2024, Sainz has enjoyed his best-ever start to a season this year and collected his third career victory at last month’s Australian Grand Prix.

Despite being heavily linked with a switch to Sauber for 2025 ahead of Audi’s highly anticipated 2026 entry, Sainz has emerged as a potential candidate for vacancies at both Mercedes and Red Bull, where Sergio Perez is out of contract at the end of this year and the future of reigning three-time World Champion Max Verstappen remains uncertain.

Multiple reports from Italy earlier this month indicated that Sainz was on the verge of agreeing a deal to join Mercedes, with suggestions that the Spaniard was facing a deadline of this month to accept Audi’s offer.

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Appearing on the Pelas Pistas podcast, Piquet Jr has advised Sainz against becoming Verstappen’s team-mate at Red Bull, claiming a move to Mercedes would be a more logical move.

He said: “Everyone thinks like that, there’s someone else, someone who thinks: ‘Alright, I’d rather be in a car like Red Bull and come and second than drive for an Audi or an Alpine.’

“McLaren doesn’t have an opening for Sainz so it’s not an option, so Mercedes is a very big manufacturer.

“It has one of the biggest teams, it’s probably the biggest structure and everything nowadays.

“It has Toto [Wolff] there who wants more than anything to win the championship again, so it’s a team that we know that at some point or another it will come back on top.

“So, if I’m at Ferrari, I can’t go to Red Bull as I’ll be behind Max.

“I’ll go to Mercedes. I think that’s really what makes more sense.”

Piquet Jr’s comments come after long-serving Red Bull adviser Helmut Marko admitted ahead of last weekend’s Chinese Grand Prix that the team cannot match Audi’s offer to Sainz, who began his F1 career with junior team Toro Rosso in 2015.

Marko told Austrian publication Kleine Zeitung: “We are talking to him.

“He is having his strongest season in Formula 1, but he has a very lucrative offer from Audi that we can’t match or beat.”

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2024-04-26T07:28:30Z dg43tfdfdgfd