{"id":20950,"date":"2024-05-08T06:01:53","date_gmt":"2024-05-08T10:01:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/?p=20950"},"modified":"2024-05-08T06:13:20","modified_gmt":"2024-05-08T10:13:20","slug":"f1-news-mercedes-monitoring-carlos-sainz-for-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2024\/05\/08\/f1-news-mercedes-monitoring-carlos-sainz-for-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"F1 News: Mercedes monitoring Carlos Sainz for 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3>Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff says Carlos Sainz is a realistic option for 2025.<\/h3>\n<p>Like most rounds of 2024, the Miami GP was a mixed bag for Mercedes. From a pure performance perspective, the W15&#8217;s serious limitations cannot be denied. In this sense, Mercedes can only be disappointed when they see their customer team &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2024\/05\/05\/mclaren-prepare-additional-upgrades-after-norris-victory\/\" target=\"_self\">McLaren<\/a> &#8211; claim victory. Still, as ever, the F1 news headlines surrounding the Silver Arrows go beyond their on-track performance.<\/p>\n<p>With Lewis Hamilton finishing P6 and George Russell in P8, Mercedes at least secured a reasonable points haul. They consolidated 4th place in the Championship, a position which &#8211; barring an unlikely turn of events &#8211; they could stay in for the rest of 2024.<\/p>\n<p>As ever, speculation continues regarding the team&#8217;s driver selection for next season. <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2024\/05\/03\/george-russell-would-welcome-max-verstappen-at-mercedes\/\" target=\"_self\">Max Verstappen<\/a> remains an attainable target for the Brackley-based team, at least in the eyes of Toto Wolff. Considering the current performance at Mercedes, the Dutchman is unlikely to jump ship before 2026 at the earliest.<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"l0xaxnLgRzNkaXmk0MvZsw\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/2151627727\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'l0xaxnLgRzNkaXmk0MvZsw',sig:'n24Ls4oAfTRVmBCBZIOqJY1mUwPD2cERm_-nviagWQ4=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'2151627727',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n<h4><strong>Mercedes mention Carlos Sainz as a potential candidate<\/strong><\/h4>\n<p>Still, the Mercedes team principal believes every option is worth exploring. Speaking of which, he mentioned <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2024\/05\/06\/carlos-sainz-is-negotiating-with-these-three-teams\/\" target=\"_self\">Carlos Sainz<\/a> as a viable option for the team:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;I think we&#8217;ve talked about the possibilities,&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.skysports.com\/f1\/news\/12433\/13130494\/max-verstappen-toto-wolff-doesnt-rule-out-meeting-with-red-bull-driver-over-f1-move-to-mercedes\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Sky Sports<\/a> quotes him as saying.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I want to be fair to these guys and not make it look like we are playing chess with humans. Because we are not doing that.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think we want to take our time, see where Max&#8217;s thinking goes.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;And at the same time, monitor the other drivers. Carlos [Sainz] was very strong in Miami again and that&#8217;s why we are a little bit in observation mode at the moment.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Sainz and Verstappen obviously represent the more established targets for Mercedes. On the opposite side of the spectrum, Kimi Antonelli is still being evaluated. The 17-year-old continues to rack up significant mileage in F1 machinery.<\/p>\n<p>Toto Wolff has been careful to try and minimise the hype surrounding Kimi Antonelli. However, at this stage, the F1 news space is littered with articles about the Italian.<\/p>\n<p>Only last weekend, the FIA confirmed they received a request to receive a special dispentation for the Mercedes junior. If accepted, he would be able to compete in F1 before turning 18 years old.<\/p>\n<p>However, both Mercedes and Williams &#8211; who are understood to have sent the request &#8211; have ruled out Antonelli earning a full-time seat before 2025. Instead, his first step will likely involve competing in Free Practice sessions.<\/p>\n<p>Whilst he continues to be evaluated, more established drivers like Carlos Sainz remain on the German outfit&#8217;s radar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff says Carlos Sainz is a realistic option for 2025. Like most rounds of 2024, the Miami GP was a mixed bag for Mercedes. From a pure performance perspective, the W15&#8217;s serious limitations cannot be denied. In this sense, Mercedes can only be disappointed when they see their customer team &#8211; [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4927,"featured_media":20752,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[2220,343,68,23,121],"class_list":["post-20950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-formula-1","category-news","tag-2024-formula-1-season","tag-carlos-sainz","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-mercedes"],"modified_by":"Jaden Diaz-Ndisang","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20950","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4927"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20950"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20950\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}