Helmut Marko leaks further details of Audi offer to Carlos Sainz

Helmut Marko has vowed that Red Bull won’t be pressurised by Audi’s offer to Carlos Sainz.

Ferrari driver Sainz will lose his seat to Lewis Hamilton in 2025 and is at the centre of the F1 driver market.

Currently a free agent, his options include Red Bull, Mercedes or Sauber who will become Audi a year later.

Red Bull could offer Sainz a drive alongside Max Verstappen if they opt to get rid of Sergio Perez.

“Sainz is currently in great shape,” Marko told OE24.

“I think he has a very great three-year offer from Audi.

“But he has to make a decision relatively soon. “We, on the other hand, won't make a decision soon.

“We won't let things like that put us under pressure.”

The claim of a three-year offer would take Sainz into 2027, two years into the new F1 regulations. But it would also mean a first year, next season, with Sauber.

Sainz came through the Red Bull junior programme and teamed with Verstappen briefly at Toro Rosso.

“Well, he was still very young back then,” Marko reacted.

“But now he has developed great and is showing incredible form.”

Sainz is the winner of the only two F1 grands prix since 2022 which Red Bull have failed to win.

Victory in Australia this season came in the aftermath of appendix surgery.

Red Bull could opt to bring him back into the fold at the expense of Perez, whose own form has impressed this year.

Perez has claimed three P2 finishes and a P3 last week at the Chinese Grand Prix to state his case for a new contract.

But Audi’s interest in Sainz is holding up the driver market.

They will run as Sauber until 2026 when the new regulations come into effect.

From there, Audi intend to make an immediate splash and are putting together their driver plans now.

Sainz has a relationship with the manufacturer because his father won the Dakar Rally for them.

But a move to Sauber, as they will remain, in 2025 is no guarantee of a fast car in comparison to the extremely competitive Ferrari that he is currently fighting at the front with.