Carlos Sainz was told by Ferrari “we will continue, for sure” into F1 2025

Carlos Sainz has revealed he was assured by Ferrari he would get a new contract before the team made the surprise decision to sign Lewis Hamilton in his place for the 2025 Formula 1 season.

Ferrari made a blockbuster move for seven-time world champion Hamilton at the beginning of 2024, pairing him up with Charles Leclerc from this season onwards in a multi-year deal.

The move came at the expense of Sainz, who had performed admirably alongside Leclerc since joining Ferrari from McLaren in 2021.

Sainz had often spoken about the shock he received after being told Ferrari wouldn’t renew his contract and how he took solace from the fact that he lost his seat to one of the greatest F1 drivers of all time.

However, the Spaniard has now shed fresh light on the situation, revealing that he had been told a new contract was a mere formality going into the 2024 season.

"I think it was around the end of January or February [when the news broke]," he said on the High Performance podcast.

"I was in the middle of my training preparation for the 2024 season. I was hopeful that the Ferrari was going to be a competitive car. I had done everything in December and January obviously to prepare myself for that season.

"Contract negotiations with Ferrari were a bit stalled in a weird way because we were talking since October [2023] to renew my contract and they kept postponing the point of signing and the point of coming to an agreement.

"But I never felt suspicious, I always felt like they were just busy with something else.

“I never felt like it was not going to happen because every feedback I was getting was, 'We're gonna continue, for sure. This is just gonna take a couple of hours to agree to the economics side of things and the two or three things we need to agree on, on your future contract. But it's going to be an easy contract and we will do it very quickly.' 

“I was like, ‘Okay, okay, no worries’.

"So I went into the winter with that mentality of: it will get sorted before race one of the 2024 season.

"And suddenly in the middle of January, end of January, I receive a phone call and they suddenly tell me the news. I heard from a friend that called me, and I was completely shocked.

"I went from believing I was going to be in Ferrari for a while, still more [years], to suddenly now I'm out of Ferrari. ‘Lewis is replacing me. What am I going to do now?’”

Sainz admitted that it took time to process the decision, especially as it left him without a clear destination for 2025.

However, despite the uncertainty caused by not having a contract in his place, Sainz made an incredible start to the 2024 season, finishing on the podium in the Bahrain season opener and winning the Australian Grand Prix from the front row just weeks after an appendicitis surgery.

The 30-year-old said the news of his impending departure from Ferrari helped unleash the best version of him as a driver.

"It never occurred to me that that could happen and it was a bit shocking,” he recalled. “It took me a good week to accept it and to assimilate it.

"You never get too much of a reaction from me, I’m quite level-headed in that sense, but that gave me a bit of a kick. 

“It made me a better athlete, a better driver. What came out of me in March, April, May was probably the best version of myself as a racing driver to date."