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Sainz and Horner Photograph: (Instagram)
The 2025 season driver transfer was on another level this year as many teams announced a new driver lineup for their team as it is the final year of the current regulations. The new regulations will start in the year 2026 with new power units. F1 teams wanted to be on top before the new regulations, so they made many driver changes.
Williams replaced Franco Colapinto with Carlos Sainz, Red Bull replaced Sergio Perez with Liam Lawson, Mercedes brought Kimi Antonelli in place of Lewis Hamilton, who joined Ferrari, and Haas replaced both their drivers with Esteban Ocon and Ollie Bearman. Alpine also signed Jack Doohan to replace Ocon, and Sauber will have Gabriel Bortoleto and Nico Hulkenberg.
But Red Bull is the only team that made the late decision not to continue with Sergio Perez after the 2024 season. After the first half of the season, Red Bull extended the contract with Perez. But his second-half slump cost them their constructors championship. So, they decided not to continue with him next year and signed Liam Lawson.
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Horner regrets missing Sainz
that is a very long way to say “yes I regret not signing Carlos Sainz” pic.twitter.com/o60HgTBiOV
— elena55🏎️ (@chili55carlos) December 19, 2024
Many fans questioned the team management for not signing Yuki Tsunoda and Carlos Sainz for the senior team. Christian Horner, the team boss, went to Williams Garage for Franco Colapinto, but his costly crashes made them back out of the deal. Horner was asked whether he regrets not signing Sainz in the first place; he replied, "Look, I think Carlos is a great driver, and we’ve seen that obviously this year it’s sometimes, you know, you’ve got to look at all the various criteria and dynamics.
"And the point that we extended Checo’s contract, you have to remember that he was second in the world championship, and you know finishing on the podium in the first four out of five races.” If Red Bull didn't sign Sergio Perez with a contract extension, they could have gone for Carlos Sainz, as he is part of their junior driver program and was already a teammate of Max Verstappen during his early days in Torro Rosso.
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