Carlos Sainz Jnr

Ferrari extend Sainz’s contract to end of 2024 season

2022 F1 season

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Carlos Sainz Jnr will race with Ferrari until at least the end of the 2024 season after signing a contract extension with the team.

Ferrari announced they will retain Sainz for the following two seasons ahead of the start of the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix weekend in Imola.

The new deal sees Sainz remain alongside Ferrari team mate Charles Leclerc, who is also contracted with Ferrari until the conclusion of the 2024 season. Ferrari currently lead both the constructors’ and drivers’ championships, the latter with Leclerc, who has won two of the first three races this year.

“I am very happy to have renewed my contract with Scuderia Ferrari,” Sainz said. “I have always said that there is no better Formula 1 team to race for and after over a year with them, I can confirm that putting on this race suit and representing this team is unique and incomparable.

“I feel strengthened by this renewed show of confidence in me and now I can’t wait to get in the car, to do my best for Ferrari and to give its fans plenty to cheer about. The F1-75 is proving to be a front-runner, which can allow me to chase my goals on track, starting with taking my first Formula 1 win.”

Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto said that extending Sainz’s contract with the team showed that Ferrari had the “best driver pairing in Formula 1”.

“With every passing race, it seemed a completely natural step to extend Carlos’ contract, thus ensuring stability and continuity,” said Binotto. “In his time so far with the team, he has proved to have the talent we expected from him, delivering impressive results and making the most of all opportunities.

“Outside the car, he is a hard worker with an eye for the smallest detail, which has helped the whole group to improve and progress. Together, we can aim for ambitious targets and I’m sure that, along with Charles, he can play a significant part in fuelling the Ferrari legend and will write new chapters in the history of our team.”

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Will Wood
Will has been a RaceFans contributor since 2012 during which time he has covered F1 test sessions, launch events and interviewed drivers. He mainly...

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27 comments on “Ferrari extend Sainz’s contract to end of 2024 season”

  1. If not a no brainer, then a 1/100th of a brainer at the most.

  2. I hope they got a discount for his mistakes in the past couple of weeks.

    I wonder when Eddie and Rubens will invite him to their club.

    1. I have an opinion
      21st April 2022, 10:16

      Sainz had shown that he was very consistent. Maybe his peformance in Australia was to show Ferrari how he could conduct the rest of the season if his contract continued to be stalled.

      With the two-year contract in pocket, normal programming will resume.

    2. It seems that Ferrari deliberately set up his car with some faults to weaken his bargaining position.

      The ‘otherwise we hire Ricciardo’ card could no longer be played :P

    3. I don’t think that Eddie and Rubens will ever invite him to their club.

    4. He had a “Last year I finished first of the two” jocker card, and not even because the other driver broke his leg :P

  3. So Mick will now be a free agent?

    1. @sumedhvidwans
      I doubt. Sainz’s continuation all but confirms his Haas continuation as effectively nowhere else for him to move.

      1. Will be interesting to see how they manage Mick. We all know Red Bull’s approach to their driver academy – perform or perish (although it is changing a little bit now).

        Ferrari on the other hand, I don’t think their approach is any more effective either. Shwartzmann, Illot seemed like promising drivers, but it seems they won’t come to F1 now. Giovinazzi came to F1 but after 3 years of being funded by Ferrari, had to go out and has finished no higher than 18th in his Formula E career so far. He probably should have been let go 1 year sooner and Ferrari could have tried out some other youngster. Mick Schumacher is getting beaten by a returning Magnussen. Unless Schumacher drastically improves, I don’t see the point in him spending a 3rd season, it will be a similar story to Giovinazzi then. But will Ferrari think the same? Or will they give Mick another year and not try out any other youngster?

        To summarize, I think all driver academies are good at finding diamonds – e.g. Max, Charles, George – and the diamonds made it to the senior team fairly quickly (except George, but that is only because Mercedes already had Lewis Hamilton).

        But what to do with the not-so-diamonds is what these driver academies need to do better. Think of Sainz, Albon, Perez. They all were cast away by their academies (In Perez’ case, the Ferrari academy and Mclaren, both discarded him) without fostering / nurturing them. All of them had to rediscover their form at another team – Mclaren, Williams (in progress), Force India – and only then did they become F1 regulars. But not everyone gets a 2nd chance. Think of Vandoorne, Jean Eric Vergne. Vergne became a Formula E champion right after getting dumped by Red Bull! Vandoorne may perhaps win WEC / Formula E too.

        1. Ferrari did not cast Perez aside – Perez voluntarily left the Ferrari junior team so he could sign with McLaren.

          He also never joined McLaren’s junior team because he was already an active F1 driver with several years of experience, whilst they wanted to focus on drivers in junior series.

    2. Do not think so. But some more years experience for mick seems a sensible thing to do.
      He is not yet there, if he ever will.

  4. His continuation was 99% certain the whole time. I never doubted this.

  5. Sainz’s results aren’t awesome right now, but I do feel that Ferrari do have the best driver line-up on the grid. I hope Sainz keeps it clean, dodges back luck and has some top results now. There’s likely going to be a good run of Ferrari 1-2s this year and Sainz needs to be at the front of some of them.

    1. but I do feel that Ferrari do have the best driver line-up on the grid

      That’s what I thought before the season start, but:
      – Perez is so far performing better than last-year/expected.
      – Russell is doing well on the Sundays (I expected a longer learning curve).
      – Even Ricciardo is a tad better than last year (Albeit Norris not as stellar as often seen in 2020).
      – And, Sainz so far is a bit below par.
      Thus, IMO no major differences between these teams’ driver line-ups.

  6. Sensible move by Ferrari and I think Sainz has more to give them at present so a good opportunity for both. Ferrari in a good position now if they want to shuffle their pack in 2025. Shouldn’t do Mick any harm if he’s good enough then he should be fighting for a seat in 2025 and Hass will happily take Ferrari incentives to keep him on the grid till then. Credit to Binotto for getting everything lined up, hopefully they’ll have at least a few years of success from it.

    1. There’s always alfa for schumacher if it ends up being a better team than haas and he proves good enough.

    2. if he’s good enough

      Is that a serious ‘if’ @slowmo ? On evidence he’s nowhere near good enough for a top team.

      1. @david-br I’ve not followed his early career and it’s hard to track his skill although a rejuvenated Magnusson should help this year. I think he will need to improve his performances significantly to get signed to the main Ferrari team because as you say, at present it’s not going well. I think we’ll know more by mid season provided Hass don’t fall too far off the pace.

        1. @slowmo It’s a good point about Magnussen being a measure for Schumacher, though I think he’d have to outperform KM by quite a lot to merit being promoted.

          1. @david-br I think he’d need to be evens on qualifying at least, with better race consistency. I do think Magnussen is a better driver than most think so it’s not an easy task to massively outperform him. The errors need to stop and it’s not acceptable to be more than a couple of tenths behind your teammate.

  7. The timing is a bit weird after such a horrible weekend, I have to say.

    1. @esploratore1 The opposite I’d say. Should stabilize Sainz’s confidence, his place in the team now being assured, while also giving Ferrari some leverage if they sooner or later want to focus, subtly, on Leclerc as lead driver in a championship battle this year (probably with Verstappen), promising Carlos that it would be back to equal terms next year.

    2. @esploratore1 it is weird considering we’re coming from a disastrous weekend for him, but Imola is Ferrari’s home circuit. If they were going to announce it this month, they’d surely wait for their home race.

  8. Let’s face it Mick Schumacher has not set the world on fire like his father did. Great news for Carlos and Charles who will not be challenged. At this point it is a clear number 2 deal for Carlos.

    1. Probably the moment Kevin got alongside Schumacher, that ship sailed.

      Carlos is quite decent, maybe not Verstappen or Leclerc level.. but sometimes gets more points than that A++ level driver. They would struggle to do a lot better for a #2.

      They and Mercedes have the best pair of drivers in F1 right now?

      1. @jureo Right now, I’d say Mercedes. Though Sainz could still improve this season.

  9. For Ferrari and Sainz’s sake, and ours as F1 fans, I hope Carlos will be at least at a Felipe Massa (before the accident) / Nico Rosberg (without the bitter rivalry) level. Anything less would be disappointing.

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