Former F1 driver Juan Pablo Montoya said he is convinced that Max Verstappen prevented Carlos Sainz from joining Red Bull Racing.
When Carlos Sainz found himself without a seat at the start of 2024, multiple big F1 teams, including Mercedes and Red Bull, initially expressed interest in him.
For a while, the Spanish driver seemed like the best option to replace Sergio Perez on the Milton Keynes team. However, Red Bull ultimately decided to keep the Mexican driver and prolong his contract rather than sign Sainz.
This decision didn't seem so irrational at the start of the year when Perez still performed well. Red Bull opted for a continuation so as not to further destabilize their F1 team at a time when it was said not everything was perfect internally.
However, Juan Pablo Montoya, a former F1 driver and seven-time Grand Prix winner, believes that Max Verstappen had to be involved in Red Bull's decision-making process. He told CasasDeApuestas:
"I'm sure that Max Verstappen would have stopped Carlos Sainz coming to Red Bull so the competition within the team wasn't difficult, although I can't confirm personally."
"When they were team-mates at Toro Rosso their relationship was pretty bumpy. I am not sure Max would have wanted to deal with that again.
"He made Max Verstappen's life pretty difficult. So when you can control who is in the car as Max is, you wouldn't want to shoot yourself would you?
Interestingly, Montoya isn't the first pundit to accuse Verstappen of ensuring that Sainz wouldn't sign with Red Bull.
Former F1 team owner Eddie Jordan suggested on one of the episodes of the Formula for Success podcast that Verstappen put pressure on Christian Horner to keep Perez because he knew he could beat him
Montoya, however, doesn't think that the four-time world champion would have been worried about Carlos Sainz. He added:
"It's not about [Max Verstappen] being scared, it's about being smart. Why would you make your life unnecessarily difficult and create a difficult environment?"
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