F1 star admits being given brutal Red Bull LAST chance verdict

Carlos Sainz and Yuki Tsunoda in 2025 — Photo: © IMAGO

F1 News & Gossip

F1 star admits being given brutal Red Bull LAST chance verdict

Carlos Sainz used to be within the Red Bull family

Sam Cook Digital Journalist

Sports Journalist who has been covering motorsport since 2023

Wednesday 21 May 2025 09:55

Formula 1 star Carlos Sainz has revealed that he was told it was last chance saloon when he was a Red Bull youngster, something which propelled him to win the Formula Renault 3.5 championship.

Sainz has since gone on to become a four-time grand prix winner, but has had a largely unsettled career, moving teams on four occasions.

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The Spaniard opted to leave the Red Bull family back in 2017, joining Renault after Max Verstappen had been promoted ahead of him into the main Red Bull seat.

He only spent 18 months at Renault before joining McLaren and then moving onto Ferrari, where he really thrived, winning four races in four seasons with the Scuderia.

However, Sainz was displaced at the end of 2024 by Lewis Hamilton's move to Ferrari, and the Spaniard was left scrambling around for a new team, eventually ending up at Williams where he has endured a mixed start to 2025.

Sainz recently revealed that he was very close to not making it into F1 at all, suggesting that Red Bull had put immense pressure on him as a youngster.

"I was starting to get close to Formula 1," Sainz told the Cards on the Table podcast. "I was in those years, one or two years before making it when Red Bull told me, 'ok, now next year is your last chance you go into F2. You either win or there's no space for you in F1.'

"I'm 18 years old, 19. So you feel the pressure. Suddenly I realised, from always believing I was going to make it, because you're more naive when you're younger, you say, 'I have the talent, I'm winning, I'm going to make it', to suddenly realising I actually might not.

"I was lucky to have my dad who was already world champion at the time to say, 'this is what you're missing to be a world champion,' and I won the next year, and I made it to Formula 1.

"But if I wouldn't have done that switch and I wouldn't have had my dad there to help me and to just go up a gear in my preparation, I wouldn't be where I am now."

Sainz seeking Williams redemption

At 30 years old, Sainz may have been fearing the worst in F1, joining a team lower down the grid with no clear path back to one of the top teams.

However, Williams have started the season off brilliantly, and are currently sat fifth in the constructors' championship.

Sainz has only picked up 11 points from the first seven grands prix weekends of the season, but the performances of team-mate Alex Albon will give him hope that he can challenge for podiums in 2025, and certainly in 2026 when new regulations sweep into the sport.

Red Bull Max Verstappen Lewis Hamilton Ferrari McLaren Carlos Sainz