Carlos Sainz Says He’s Not Sure Why Red Bull Passed On Partnering Him With Max Verstappen

Around this time last year, Williams driver Carlos Sainz was one of the hottest commodities on the drivers market, after being shown the door by Ferrari to make room for the incoming Lewis Hamilton.

There seemed to be several good landing spots in play for him at the time. He could have joined Sauber, which will become Audi next season, seeing as his dad, rally great Carlos Sainz Sr, has a relationship with the German automaker.

Or, he could've replaced the struggling Sergio Perez at Red Bull in a return to the Red Bull stable after making his F1 debut with Toro Rosso (now known as Racing Bulls).

In the end, he decided to join Williams, and while that seemed like a good choice at the time, Sainz has had his struggles P15 in the driver standings after scoring just 13 of the team's 59 points this season, with teammate Alex Albon doing the bulk of the scoring to put the team in P5 in the constructors' standings, 18 points clear of surging Sauber at the halfway point of the season.

But now the Spaniard is questioning why Red Bull didn't opt for him to drive alongside Max Verstappen, especially as they've had trouble getting points out of their second car, which has been driven by both Liam Lawson and Yuki Tsunoda this year.

"The only thing I can say is I genuinely get on well with Max," Sainz said during an appearance on the High Performance podcast, per Motorsport. "This is what people don't see from the outside. Like, we had a rivalry in our first year in Formula 1 in Toro Rosso, but it was a relatively healthy rivalry in terms of him and me, the way we used to go about racing. And now we get on really well.

"So, if that's the reason I don't understand why they wouldn't want me next to Max, because I think we would actually be a very strong pairing in Formula 1."

Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz were teammates at Toro Rosso in 2015, but Red Bull opted not to reunite them a decade later.  (Photo by Robert Cianflone/Getty Images)

Could Sainz Have Solved Red Bull's Second Seat Dilemma?

It's a fair question, especially as Verstappen has scored 165 of Red Bull's 172 points this season, showing that the lack of production out of the second car has ruled them out of a chance at a constructors' title.

But what could the answer be? Sainz mentioned a solid relationship with Verstappen, which is good, but the problem at Red Bull has never been about teammates getting along. Verstappen always seems to have gotten along well with his teammates.

In the end, Red Bull gave the seat to Lawson, and perhaps that was because the team had created a logjam of drivers who had come through their junior system. Lawson, Yuki Tsunoda (who replaced Lawson in the second Red Bull after two race weekends), Isack Hadjar, and then behind them you've got Ayumu Iwasa, and current F2 drivers Oliver Goethe, Arvid Lindblad, and Pepe Martí.

You spend all of that money funding their junior career, you want to get some return on investment at the F1 level.

But that hasn't worked out. As I mentioned, Lawson and Tsunoda have combined for just 7 points in the second Red Bull.

Is it possible that Carlos Sainz could've helped solve Red Bull's issues with their second car? (Getty Images)

So, perhaps a more experienced driver like Sainz would've been the right call to deal with a Red Bull car that is notoriously difficult to drive.

We may never know why Red Bull passed on Sainz, but even while he has had his struggles this year, you have to wonder if maybe he could've put some more points on the board for Red Bull than Lawson and Tsunoda.