Carlos Sainz Snr admits that he “would have liked” to see his son Carlos Sainz Jnr line-up at Red Bull as team-mate to Max Verstappen.

And in the opinion of rally legend Sainz Snr – who is considering a push for the role of FIA president – going up against reigning four-time World Champion Verstappen at Red Bull is a “challenge” that his son would have “loved” to take on.

Carlos Sainz and Red Bull: A door closed for good?

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

Red Bull brought Sainz into Formula 1, with he and Verstappen becaming team-mates at their junior outfit Toro Rosso in 2015. But, with Verstappen receiving the Red Bull promotion just over a year later, Sainz’s career took him down a different path, as he went on to race for Renault, McLaren, Ferrari and now Williams.

Talk of Sainz becoming Verstappen’s Red Bull team-mate gained traction in 2024, with the decision from Ferrari to sign seven-time World Champion Lewis Hamilton from F1 2025 announced before the 2024 campaign got underway, though Williams ultimately became Sainz’s new home on the F1 grid.

But, for father and son, it seems Red Bull was high on the wishlist.

“I would have liked to see him next to Max in the Red Bull,” Sainz Snr admitted on his son when speaking with Kronen Zeitung. “I’m sure he would have loved that challenge.

“Unfortunately, it didn’t happen.

“You could ask Carlos yourself. He might say no to you, but I think he would also like to be driving for Red Bull.”

Sainz Snr admitted that he and his son “were sad” over an “unexpected” departure from Ferrari, the team renewing the contract of Charles Leclerc, but deciding that Hamilton on the other side of the garage was the way forward.

But, with Sainz subsequently joining Williams as a four-time grand prix winner, he is “happy” with his new team, one that “respects” him, according to his dad.

Despite much of the focus for Williams being on F1 2026 when the new chassis and engine rules arrive, it has been a strong current campaign so far for the Grove-based outfit with 54 points scored, placing them P5 in the Constructors’ standings.

42 of those have come from Alex Albon, while Sainz has provided 12, Sainz on a run of four consecutive points-scoring finishes after a tricky start to Williams life.

“Of course, Ferrari is one of the best teams in Formula 1. We were sad, naturally,” Sainz Snr said on his son’s Ferrari exit. “It was quite unexpected. But that’s life.

“Sometimes you are lucky and get a contract and sometimes you have to leave.

“He is happy at Williams now.

“There is a team behind him that trusts and respects him.”

F1 2025 head-to-head standings

👉 F1 2025: Head-to-head qualifying statistics between team-mates

👉 F1 2025: Head-to-head race statistics between team-mates

And as Sainz Jnr continues to settle in at Williams, his father is potentially gearing up for a huge new challenge of his own, as he weighs up the idea of running for the FIA presidency, with the elections coming up at the end of this year.

Current FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem – who took over from Jean Todt at the head of Formula 1’s governing body in 2021 – will be running for a second term.

And while Sainz Jnr is backing his dad for the role, he also warned that the “politics” involved may not be something he enjoys dealing with.

Addressing the prospect of his father becoming FIA president, Sainz Jnr told the media, including PlanetF1.com: “We’ve been talking about it for a while now. Interestingly enough, I think it’s something that didn’t actually come from him, like a lot of people were kind of putting it in in his head, and little by little, he started considering it.

“I think the key is that he still hasn’t put together a team but he’s considering it, and depending obviously how he sees it, he will go for it or not.

“I think that’s a negative side now of it, the politics, but I think that if there’s a guy that could remove politics from it, it could be my dad because he sticks to common sense and has very basic rules of going about life.

“And I think that’s why so many people went to him, to push him maybe to potentially do it. So there’s politics, he will probably not enjoy that part of the work, but he knows it’s part of it.”

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