- Carlos Sainz claims Verstappen’s Red Bull contract exempts him from media and marketing duties.
- Verstappen competed at the Nürburgring 24 Hours this year while racing a full F1 season.
- Williams sits eighth after seven rounds, and Sainz admits his patience has a limit.
Carlos Sainz says Max Verstappen is the only Formula 1 driver who has negotiated his way out of marketing and media obligations, with a certain clause written into his contract with Red Bull Racing.
The Williams driver made the claim in an interview with Spanish outlet Mundo Deportivo. He suggested that this arrangement gives Verstappen the freedom no other driver on the grid enjoys.
Sainz made the remarks while answering a question about whether today’s drivers could revive the Elf Masters, an indoor karting competition that ran between 1993 and 2011.
The event featured some of the sport’s biggest names over the years, including Ayrton Senna, Michael Schumacher, and Lewis Hamilton.
Sainz ruled out a revival for the current generation. “I think that in a 24-race championship, with all the marketing and interviews we do, that’s impossible,” he told Mundo Deportivo. “No driver could manage it.”
Then he made an exception.
“Well… Max would be the only one, because he’s the only one who doesn’t do marketing or interviews. He has it written into his contracts. He can afford to do so, and Red Bull accepts it,” Sainz said.
“As for the rest of us, we simply don’t have the time or the free capacity to put our energy into a race like that.”
Max Verstappen’s life beyond Formula 1
Verstappen’s schedule outside F1 does appear to support what Sainz described. In May this year, the Dutchman made his debut at the Nürburgring 24 Hours. He drove a Mercedes-AMG GT3 for Team Verstappen Racing alongside Jules Gounon, Dani Juncadella and Lucas Auer.
The Nürburgring commitment was not casual. Verstappen competed in up to five races at the Nordschleife in preparation.
He completed qualifying sessions and classroom exams, and even raced in a GT4 category to earn his special DMSB Nordschleife licence. All of this happened while he was racing a full 24-round F1 season.
Former Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko supported Verstappen’s Nürburgring programme. In 2025, Marko said his star driver had “lost a little bit of interest” in F1 after a slow start to the season, and that the endurance racing outings had helped restore that.
Marko later said the net effect included a more motivated driver and a gain of up to two tenths of a second in F1 lap time.
Verstappen has been open about what drives him to race outside F1. “It just shows that my love, it’s not only around Formula 1. I love racing, I love competing,” he told ESPN. “Just going back to a bit more old-school, proper racing, that’s what I’m trying to seek.”
Carlos Sainz’s own frustration at Williams
The Spaniard’s comments on Verstappen were only part of what he told Mundo Deportivo. He also spoke about his own situation at Williams, and his words were pointed.
Williams came into the 2026 season on the back of a promising 2025 campaign. The team finished fifth in the constructors’ standings last year, with Sainz taking two podiums in Azerbaijan and Qatar.
Team principal James Vowles had set a target of fighting at the front by 2028. After seven rounds of 2026, Williams sits eighth in the constructors’ championship with just 11 points. Its best result this season is eighth place in Monaco.
The FW48 arrived both late and overweight, and the car has struggled at circuits where downforce matters most. Sainz acknowledged the setback directly.
“I think it’s a realistic goal now, but it’s also true that the step backwards we’ve taken this year may well have delayed that goal by a few months or a year,” Sainz said of the 2028 target.
“It’s true that last year we were closer to the leaders than expected, and this year further away than expected, so perhaps one thing balances out the other.”
Sainz, now 31, also revealed he is watching an internal clock. “It’s something I’m working on, in my own mind too, how long I’m prepared to wait to win again in Formula 1,” he said.
“I want that time to be as short as possible, and that’s why, even though James says 2028, I’m going to push the team to make it happen sooner.”
The comments read as a message to Williams as much as an answer to a journalist. Multiple sources have told PlanetF1 that Sainz is questioning his future with the team and that he is looking at Audi as a possible alternative path.
For now, he says he remains committed to the project. But he has made clear that his patience has a limit, and that limit is not fixed to anyone else’s timeline.
