Carlos Sainz left with ‘trust’ issues in the midst of ‘political’ 2025 negotiations

Carlos Sainz looking serious

Carlos Sainz has learned a harsh lesson in the midst of his F1 2025 negotiations and that’s to “trust very little people” in the F1 paddock as it’s very political.

Linked to Red Bull and Mercedes, both of whom talked him up after his success at the Australian Grand Prix, Sainz heads into round 11 of the championship with his options limited to the bottom half of the grid.

Carlos Sainz: It’s really a very political sport

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

Although the Spaniard, a two-time grand prix winner, was heavily linked to Audi of late, Williams emerged as the frontrunners for his signature, only for new Alpine advisor Flavio Briatore to swoop in with a late offer.

According to reports, the Italian has offered Sainz a multi-year deal to replace Esteban Ocon and it comes with an exit clause should the driver receive an offer from a rival team for the F1 2026 season.

Sainz, though, has given no indication as to which way he is leaning, nor does he think now is the time to decide given the Austrian GP marks round two of the season’s first triple-header.

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But in the midst of all the chats and even negotiations up and down the paddock, Sainz has learned one very harsh lesson about Formula 1 – be careful who you trust.

“First of all, the situation that I’ve been in this year has made me learn a lot about Formula 1 in general,” Sainz told the media including PlanetF1.com.

“By talking to teams it has kind of showed me how tough this sport is, and how little sometimes you have to believe what people say at the beginning of negotiations, conversation.

“And mainly also to trust very little people in the paddock because it’s really a very political sport. There’s a lot of things like this involved.

“It’s made me understand it’s a very tough sport in that sense and understand a better picture of Formula 1 without going too much into detail.

“Apart from the other teams, obviously I’ve learned a lot in which position they are in and the teams that I am potentially moving to next year, I’ve obviously dug in a lot into the state that they are and the situation that there is.

“It’s also made me have probably a better understanding of how Formula 1 each team is and where they are.”

Mercedes and Sainz talks progressed to ‘conditions’ before the team withdrew

Although today Sainz is being linked mainly to Williams and Alpine, the Spaniard was in serious negotiations with Mercedes, the extent of which was revealed by Toto Wolff in an interview with Caranddriver.

Although the conversation had progressed to discussing the “conditions” for signing him, Mercedes withdrew from the talks as Wolff wanted to wait to see how junior driver Kimi Antonelli progressed in F2.

He said as per formulapassion.it: “We had talks with Carlos Sainz, going so far as to talk about the conditions of a possible agreement.

“But we came to the decision that we would not confirm our choice until the autumn. We wanted to leave the question open, both to see what happened with Max, but also to observe how Andrea Kimi Antonelli evolved. And that meant a possible wait until September, October or even November.

“So with Sainz we decided that it was better for them to act differently.”