Carlos Sainz has options galore in terms of securing a seat for 2025. Red Bull is one of these options for the Spaniard to consider and given it is the champion team, one would think it is a no-brainer. However, it is not as simple as Sainz knows the way the Red Bull team manages their drivers as he was a part of the side back in the day. The co-host of Nailing the Apex podcast, Adam Wylde, has delved deep into how Christian Horner has managed his drivers in the past and explained how he has his “favorites” such as Max Verstappen.
Wylde said, “If you look at Christian Horner’s history, he has never ever treated the drivers the same. He has his favorites. Had Carlos [Sainz] been one of them, he’d still be at Red Bull.”
Wylde then further explained his point by explaining how Red Bull let Verstappen get away with his mistakes. Wylde explained, “People forget how many mistakes Max made when he was coming up and Red Bull let him get away with it because he had such a phenomenal top-end ability that they know was tantalizing“.
All of Verstappen’s teammates, including Daniel Ricciardo and Sainz, were a victim in some way because of this ‘bias’. However, Verstappen perhaps does deserve the preference, owing to his sheer ability and performance levels.
Soon after Wylde made his point, his co-host, Tim Hauraney, also highlighted an effect of the Austrian team’s strictness. Hauraney cited how the Red Bull Academy has a big pipeline of young and talented drivers.
However, Red Bull being too critical might be affecting their progression to F1. And this critical scrutiny doesn’t stop when they get a shot at either of Red Bull’s teams as well.
When Max Verstappen was under pressure at Red Bull due to his mistakes
Tim Hauraney then recalled Max Verstappen’s early days at Red Bull and how the Dutchman used to often crash or collide with others. Hauraney highlighted an incident from several seasons ago when Verstappen had a bad start to the campaign. At that time, Hauraney mentioned that the media were criticizing Verstappen immensely for his crashes.
Verstappen had to deal with this criticism several times from 2016 to 2018. At one point, he even got fed up with answering questions such as ‘When will he stop crashing often’. Hauraney then highlighted that the Red Bull driver managed to power through that phase and did not succumb under the pressure from his team and the media.
Naturally, Red Bull were not happy with his frequent crashes and collisions. Still, as Wylde highlighted earlier they might have let him improve on it despite putting pressure, knowing his high performance ceiling.
However, they did not showcase the same kind of patience with Sainz. As a result, the now-Ferrari driver also claimed back in 2017 that it was “unlikely” for him to get a fourth season with Toro Rosso.
These comments caused an immense stir and did not please the Red Bull management. Eventually, Sainz left the Austrian team’s stable with his Renault switch [on a loan deal] in 2018 and then moved to McLaren in 2019.
