Two days after announcing Sebastian Vettel will leave after the 2021 Formula One season, Ferrari has hired the four-time champion’s replacement.
The storied team announced that McLaren’s Carlos Sainz Jr. has been signed to a two-year deal to be Charles LeClerc’s teammate.
Sainz, 25, has been full time in Formula One since the 2015 season, driving for McLaren, Renault and Toro Rosso. He scored a career-best third place last November in the Grand Prix of Brazil.
“I am very happy that I will be driving for Scuderia Ferrari in 2021 and I’m excited about my future with the team,” Sainz said in a team release. “I still have an important year ahead with McLaren Racing and I’m really looking forward to going racing again with them this season.”
Said Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto in the statement: “With five seasons already behind him, Carlos has proved to be very talented and has shown that he has the technical ability and the right attributes to make him an ideal fit with our family. We’ve embarked on a new cycle with the aim of getting back to the top in Formula 1.
“It will be a long journey, not without its difficulties, especially given the current financial and regulatory situation, which is undergoing a sudden change and will require this challenge to be tackled in a different way to the recent past. We believe that a driver pairing with the talent and personality of Charles and Carlos, the youngest in the past 50 years of the Scuderia, will be the best possible combination to help us reach the goals we have set ourselves.”
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