Red Bull would let Sainz go if price is right
Red Bull says it would consider any sensible offer made for Carlos Sainz, but has rubbished talk that the young Spaniard is poised to be moved elsewhere.
Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images
Sainz's option to remain as part of Red Bull's F1 programme was taken up ahead of the Austrian Grand Prix, which means he is committed to another two years at the main team or sister outfit Toro Rosso.
However, there were wild reports over the British GP weekend that Renault was putting together a deal for Sainz to replace Jolyon Palmer from the next race in Hungary. These rumours were angrily dismissed by Renault team management.
Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has also rubbished talks of a Sainz switch for the next race, but has made it clear that there could be scope for a deal to be done in the future for the energy drinks company to release him.
"Nothing has changed," said Horner. "Carlos Sainz has a contract with Red Bull Racing. There are two years left on that contract . We value him as an asset, and an asset has a value.
"So if there was a desire for another team to have him or for him to go anywhere else, something that has a value has to have a price attached to it.
"If somebody was prepared to make an offer of course we would consider it. But it would have to have a significant value attached to it, because we have invested in Carlos significantly.
"We have taken him from Formula BMW to F1, and you are not just going to give an asset away."
When asked if he had any offers on the table for Sainz right now, Horner said: "No."
No release for Red Bull duo
Although Horner has said that Red Bull would consider offers for Sainz, he says that rival teams can forget about thinking that they can try to lure Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo as well.
Horner declared: "They are totally locked in, and there is no price that would be high enough for those two."
Ricciardo's current contract runs until the end of 2018, while Verstappen has options that extend in to 2019.
Horner said there was no rush to try to extend either of those deals.
"2019 is a long way away," he said. "Daniel is out of contract, he will have completed the fifth year of his contract with us and I am sure we will start to talk to Daniel a little bit closer to 2019."
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