What Sainz’s early F1 leadership manifesto idea means for his GPDA director stint

Carlos Sainz’s pre-season testing press convention look alongside many of the rookie drivers getting into Formulation 1 in 2025 revealed a lot about his present place within the championship.

The primary is that, at 30 and about to begin his eleventh grand prix racing season, he’s now considered one of F1’s veteran figures – the teen of his 2015 Toro Rosso debut alongside Max Verstappen lengthy gone.

The second is how Sainz has chosen to make use of this standing to attempt to profit his friends.

As a result of – sitting alongside Oliver Bearman, Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Gabriel Bortoleto and Isack Hadjar within the press convention room on the ultimate day of Bahrain testing – Sainz wasn’t even every week on from being introduced as changing Sebastian Vettel as a director of the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association.

He’s joined chairman Alexander Wurz, George Russell and Anastasia Fowle (the GPDA’s authorized counsel) because the physique’s representatives.

Sainz’s resolution to work on behalf of the F1 racing pack came to visit a winter the place he’d mirrored on his age and profession achievements. He additionally felt that as he was stepping again down the grid in swapping Ferrari for Williams, he may be nicely positioned for the GPDA in appearing away from the bitter infighting frontrunners should interact in (see Russell’s ongoing spat with Verstappen).

Having known as Wurz, they met in Monaco in January and it was rapidly agreed Sainz was to turn out to be the GPDA’s second energetic racing director since Vettel retired on the finish of 2022.

Carlos Sainz, Williams

Photograph by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Photos

“Now that I’m 30 and have 10 years of expertise in F1, I begin to perceive how this sport works,” Sainz defined in Bahrain about his ambition to affix the GPDA. “And the mixture of the drivers, FOM, and that hyperlink with the FIA, how with my expertise I may doubtlessly carry myself ahead as a candidate.”

Sainz additionally revealed that the GPDA has “three or 4 issues that we have to work on and that’s going to participate of our time” in 2025. The present driver expression clampdown being enacted by the FIA possible tops that invoice, however the adjusted racing guidelines coming for this yr and ongoing frustration with the applying of penalties and assortment of driver fines are additionally within the highlight for the GPDA.

“A few of them are non-public points that we are attempting to handle in a non-public method,” Sainz added. “Others are extra public.

“You have seen the letter that we posted [on the GPDA’s Instagram account last November] and the help that we bought from rally drivers not way back [after Rally Sweden in February, with a similar public address to the FIA]. It looks like all of us appear to be in an analogous thoughts body in that sense.”

Sainz’s look alongside nearly all of 2025’s rookie crop meant he was requested to evaluate their difficult place – with Testing of Earlier Vehicles (TPC) operating restricted to simply 1000km this yr.

By the use of historic context, again in 2007, Lewis Hamilton was in a position to log practically 5000 miles in pre-season operating with present and former F1 equipment forward of his debut. TPC operating had beforehand been extra beneficiant for upcoming racers.

And, after wishing the rookies “all one of the best”, the Spaniard once more showcased his calm and mind as he introduced an concept that reveals simply how the GPDA will acquire from what many paddock insiders contemplate to be knowledge past his years.

Carlos Sainz, Williams FW47

Photograph by: Williams F1

“F1, if I am trustworthy, may do a little bit of an effort in attempting to do a greater job in how we go testing,” he mentioned. “In the long run, you’ve gotten a number of groups spending an infinite quantities of cash in simulators.

“You’ve got drivers flying to the UK from Monaco to go to the simulator and I do not perceive why we get three days of testing when all that cash might be invested into, I do not know, eight days of testing – I am not asking for an excessive amount of – eight-to-10 days the place each staff picks their locations to check.

“It is good to have a collective take a look at, I believe it ought to keep, however my proposal could be to place within the price range cap the variety of days, put within the price range cap the simulator additionally and see the place the groups wish to spend their cash – if it is within the sim or it is in 10 testing days.

“Rookies would profit and I believe F1 groups would profit as a result of despite the fact that the simulators are good, they’re inferior to among the engineers or folks are likely to consider they’re. I’d all the time select testing, and for these guys additionally, than going to a simulator.”

The price of flying drivers on common short-haul journeys would should be balanced towards how a lot it might take for flying as many as 75 employees members required to run a automotive in testing, in Bahrain or elsewhere, in pre-season.

However this instance alone demonstrates Sainz’s value to his friends and the way thoughtfully he’ll go about representing them.