Carlos Sainz has expressed his willingness to support his teammate Charles Leclerc upon Ferrari’s request, despite his impending departure from the team after the 2024 F1 season concludes.
The Spaniard is set to leave Ferrari by year’s end, making room for Lewis Hamilton’s highly anticipated entry.
Sainz aims to conclude his tenure at Ferrari on a positive note, hoping to build on his existing tally of two race wins.
Amid speculations that Sainz might resist playing a supportive role or even act contrary to team interests due to his replacement, he clarified his stance. Following the unveiling of the SF-24 earlier in the week, Sainz affirmed his commitment to following any directives from the team.
“Of course. I’ve always been a team player,” Sainz said. “Everything I’ve done in Formula 1 I think I’ve been a great team player, I’ve always been exemplary in that sense as a driver for any team.
“I will definitely help Charles if I have to, the same way that I expect Charles to help me if I fight for a World Championship myself too.”
Despite his tenure with Ferrari drawing to a close, the 29-year-old has declared that his ambition remains unaltered – to secure the world championship.
“I think the amount of pressure that I will put in myself, in the team and my engineers and everyone involved, I think will be exactly the same,” he added.
“The hunger to win races, the hunger to become champions doesn’t change just because of what’s happening in ’25. We all have the same objective. We all have the same ambitions this year.
“And the fact that I’m not going to be a Scuderia Ferrari driver in 2025 doesn’t mean that we don’t want to become champions together this year or win races this year.
“So I think it’s going to be exactly the same. If anything, I can focus even more knowing in the present and then focus more on the race by race, making sure I have the best possible car and feeling underneath me and not having to focus so much on development and in the future.”
