CARLOS SAINZ ADDRESSES GEORGE RUSSELL ‘NOISE’ AS LEWIS HAMILTON SCENARIO RETURNS

Carlos Sainz believes George Russell has to be affected by the barrage of Max Verstappen’s rumours, as the longer that rumbles on, the longer he’s left waiting for a new Mercedes contract.

Verstappen is again being linked to a move away from Red Bull to join Mercedes ahead of the sport’s all-important F1 2026 reset.

George Russell is facing an uncertain future

While Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff weighs up his options, having said he’ll only make a decision as the summer break begins after Hungary, Russell is left in limbo.

The four-time Grand Prix winner is reportedly the driver who would make way for Verstappen, should a move take place, as his team-mate Kimi Antonelli is a protégé of Wolff’s, with the driver billed as Mercedes’ future.

It’s a situation that Sainz is all too familiar with having spent six months living in uncertainty about his own Formula 1 future last year when he was informed before the start of the season that Ferrari would not renew his contract to make room for Lewis Hamilton.

Sainz was in talks with just about every team up and down the pitlane, and despite putting in his best season in the sport with two race wins, his options fell away one by one. He, though, admits it was difficult to keep performing with all of that “noise” going on.

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Sainz told talkSPORT: “As a racing driver, it’s not an ideal situation. We all try and hide the fact that it affects you, we try not to be affected.

“I strongly believe that, like I did last year, you can still have a very strong season with all this noise going around your future and around your team, like it can be proved by what George is doing this year and what I did last year.

“But at the same time, it’s not ideal. It’s noise for you. It’s noise for the team. It’s noise for your engineers, for your mechanics.”

“In an ideal situation, the way you go racing, the way you are getting the results and the way you are being world champion is when all this is quiet, and when there’s 100 per cent trust between you and the team, and when there’s 100 per cent commitment between both parties.

“Even though you can still have a very successful season, it’s not the ideal situation and it’s not what any driver wants.”

As weeks turned into months and Sainz’s future still wasn’t resolved in the build-up to the 2024 British Grand Prix, the Spaniard told that media at Silverstone that it was a stressful situation that was taking up a lot of his time away from the track.

“For sure it’s causing me a bit of stress and time to think,” he said at the time.

“Especially because, obviously, Mondays to Thursdays a lot of things are happening behind closed doors. There’s a lot of talks and a lot of conversations going on.

“Then once I arrive on Thursday to the track, all this disappears and I’m focusing 100 per cent on performing in Ferrari.

“But for sure Mondays to Thursdays I’m more busy and more stressed than what I was in a normal year.”

Three weeks after that interview, Sainz was announced as a Williams driver “for ’25, ’26 and beyond”, with the deal including two guaranteed years and an option for a third season after that.

But while Russell still has a few more weeks to learn his fate, the Briton, at least when speaking with the media, doesn’t sound all that concerned about whatever happens next.

“Yeah, pretty confident, to be honest,” he told the media, including PlanetF1.com, at Silverstone.

“Because I think what I’ve proven so far has been plenty enough and, yeah, not really much more to say.

“Any teams who did reach out in the past, I said, ‘Look, I am loyal to Mercedes’. That’s where my future lies. And ultimately, Mercedes are my managers, so it has to be dealt through Mercedes in the first place.

“But yeah, there hasn’t been a lack of interest, let’s say, but I’ve been focused on my side. I am loyal to Mercedes, so at the end of the day, everything will work itself out, and the likelihood I’m not a Mercedes next year, I think, is exceptionally low.”

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2025-07-14T09:06:17Z