Setting out the champagne in an ice bucket next to the freshly printed contract over the Spanish GP weekend, James Vowles was left hanging by Carlos Sainz and it was because “Flavio called me.”

That was one of the revelations as Netflix’s latest series of Drive to Survive told the story of Sainz’s search for an F1 2025 team in an episode entitled ‘Carlos Signs’.

Williams had the last word with Carlos Sainz signing

Season 7 of Drive to Survive will be released on March 7 with the hit docuseries detailing the events of the F1 2024 championship with Sainz as the star of episode four.

Almost six months to the day after the world learned that Sainz had been dropped by Ferrari to make room for Lewis Hamilton, the Spaniard put pen to paper on a multi-year agreement with Williams.

It was, however, five weeks after Vowles first waited in a hotel conference room with champagne on ice and a contract in hand only for Sainz not to arrive to sign.

Drive to Survive S7: Spoiler alert

👉 Drive to Survive S7 episode guide: What to expect from all 10 new episodes

👉 Drive to Survive S7 review: The F1 feast after S6’s famine

Conceding he was “bitter” when he was dropped by Ferrari, Sainz was linked to leading teams Red Bull and Mercedes only for nothing to come from that, leaving the Spaniard debating between Audi F1 and Williams.

The latter really wanted him, Vowles telling the Drive to Survive producers: “I wake up in the morning and I go to sleep at night thinking of nothing else.”

The team principal negotiated with Sainz and his team, including his manager Carlos Oñoro.

“I really am confident this it’s a good contract and a good place,” Vowles told Oñoro. “I know I’m going to get stronger over the next few races, I’m quite an honorable individual.

“You want a relationship? I want a relationship. Let’s put a piece of paper together that covers it off.”

And he believed he’d done just that, captured on camera setting up champagne on ice in a conference room in Barcelona with a freshly printed contract in hand just waiting for Sainz’s signature.

“Signing a driver,” quipped the Briton, “has some similarities to dating. You start with texts, then dinner, then you end up in a hotel room.”

Sainz did not arrive with Vowles eventually informed that he would not be coming.

Asked what happened, Sainz told producers: “Flavio called me.”

As rumours did the rounds that Sainz was on the verge of signing with Williams in Spain, it was reported at the time that Alpine executive director Flavio Briatore was keen on securing the 30-year-old’s services with Briatore spotted deep in conversation with Sainz’s father, Carlos Sainz Sr.

“I need a driver in 2025,” the Italian revealed of his conversation with Sainz’s father. “I need Carlos.

“I know him from when he was a child, and we have a very super relationship. Especially his father. I told the father: ‘One day, maybe we work together.’”

Oñoro then admitted to Vowles at the British Grand Prix: “Carlos has got doubts. I think he’s evaluating every single team available.”

But whether it was Christian Horner’s warning, said to colleagues, that “Flavio will f**k him 100 per cent, and he’s expensive which Flavio will hate” getting back to Sainz and his team or Pierre Gasly’s thoughts on the Alpine F1 car, Sainz signed a multi-year deal with Williams at the Belgian GP.

Vowles had the last word, at least on Drive to Survive. “Congratulations,” he said as Sainz walked into the conference room.

Series seven of Drive to Survive will release globally on Netflix on March 7 2025.

Read next: Uncovered: What Lewis Hamilton said to Sainz about Mercedes