Fred Vasseur shuts down Carlos Sainz talk as Spanish media cries foul over exit

Ferrari team boss Fred Vasseur says he will “not talk” about Carlos Sainz’s future after the non-renewed Ferrari driver won the Australian Grand Prix.

Two weeks after an appendectomy, Sainz raced to the victory at the Australian Grand Prix and remains the only non-Red Bull driver to win a race, now having done so twice, since 2022.

Fred Vasseur will ‘not talk’ about 2025 after Carlos Sainz’s Aus GP win

And yet he is, as he put it, “jobless” for next season after Ferrari opted not to renew his contract and instead signed Lewis Hamilton as Charles Leclerc’s 2025 team-mate.

Having confirmed in January that Leclerc would continue with the team “beyond” the 2024 season, it was thought it was only a matter of time before Ferrari announced a new deal for Sainz.

Instead, they shocked the F1 paddock when they revealed they’d signed Hamilton after the Briton activated an escape clause in his Mercedes contract that meant he could leave at the end of this year.

Sainz, now in the hunt for a new team for next season, put all that – and his appendectomy – behind him to win the Australian Grand Prix ahead of Leclerc raising questions about whether Ferrari have made the right call.

Vasseur refused to be drawn on that when speaking to DAZN, saying: “I’m not going to talk about next year.

“We reached an agreement with Carlos a few weeks ago to focus only on this championship and not talk about the future.

“There are still twenty races to do, which are twenty opportunities to win. We have to focus on that.”

PlanetF1.com recommends

Carlos Sainz pushing Ferrari towards buyer’s remorse after Lewis Hamilton swap

The updated Drivers’ and Constructors’ standings after the Australian GP

Ferrari swapping ‘documentary-worthy’ driver for one in ‘clear decline’

Sainz’s latest race victory, the third of his career, came on a weekend in which his 2025 replacement struggled for form.

Hamilton not only failed to make it into the pole position shoot-out, but he was fighting for minor points at best when his W15’s engine failed.

The Spanish press have let Ferrari know their thoughts on that.

Writing for Marca, Maro Canseco reckons Ferrari are swapping a driver worthy of a “documentary” for one who is in “clear decline”.

“Sainz’s feat would deserve a complete documentary if he were British like Lewis Hamilton, with a victory days after undergoing surgery for appendicitis and with three incisions still in his abdomen, which must have bothered him on the torture rack for the body that is F1,” he said.

“In the offices of Maranello, or rather Turin, they made a decision to do without their currently best driver, already in 2023 ahead of Charles Leclerc, to place a driver in clear decline not so much in talent as in morale and of attitude, as the seven-time champion has been demonstrating in recent times.

“It is not based on sporting values, but on marketing. May God preserve their sight. Hamilton’s abandonment (engine) when he was clearly behind Russell again indicates that he is no longer the undisputed first driver at Mercedes and it is very likely that he will not be able to beat the Monegasque in 2025 either.”

Soymotor’s Raymond Blancafort believes Ferrari have to be questioning their decision.

“Surely, once the euphoric rush of adrenaline has passed, Frédéric Vasseur and Elkann will have their brains rumbling with a question: ‘Have we made a mistake?'” he said.

“At Ferrari, they promised them very happily by announcing the signing of Lewis Hamilton with a chequebook, sacrificing Carlos Sainz. And now perhaps they are wondering if they have signed a name more than the man they needed – who they had at home, surely much cheaper, and who wanted to continue.”

Read next: Australian Grand Prix driver ratings: Superb Sainz and rusty Russell the headline acts