Carlos Sainz is set to replace Sebastian Vettel at Ferrari for the 2021 Formula 1 season, with an announcement expected later this week.

Ferrari confirmed on Tuesday morning that four-time world champion Vettel would be leaving at the end of 2020 after both parties agreed to break off talks over a new contract.

Ferrari has moved swiftly to identify a replacement for Vettel, with sources indicating to Motorsport.com that a deal has now been struck with current McLaren driver Sainz.

An announcement is expected from Ferrari in the coming days confirming Sainz as Charles Leclerc's new teammate from 2021.

It will mark a step up to a front-running team for Sainz, 25, who impressed through his first season with McLaren in 2019, scoring the team's first podium in nearly six years at the Brazilian Grand Prix.

McLaren had already commenced early talks with Sainz over extending his current contract, which was due to expire at the end of the year.

But the British team is now facing a line-up change for 2021 as Sainz moves up to Ferrari, with both Vettel and current Renault driver Daniel Ricciardo being linked with a move.

Ricciardo had been expected to attract interest from Ferrari to replace Vettel, but is now understood to be on course for a switch to McLaren.

By completing its line-up for 2021 with Sainz and Leclerc, Ferrari will also end any speculation that Lewis Hamilton could make a shock switch from Mercedes for next year.

It would also close off a possible option for Hamilton's teammate, Valtteri Bottas, who will be left to focus on retaining his seat with Mercedes to remain at the front of the grid.

Sainz's move to Ferrari will be the latest big step in a career trajectory that has accelerated quickly since his exit from Toro Rosso in late 2017.

A product of Red Bull's junior programme, Sainz won the Formula Renault 3.5 title in 2014 before moving up to F1 the following year, partnering Max Verstappen.

Sainz starred through his time at Toro Rosso, leading the team following Verstappen's sudden promotion to Red Bull in early 2016, and was signed by Renault with four races remaining in the 2017 campaign.

Sainz spent 2018 with Renault before moving across to McLaren following Ricciardo's arrival at Enstone, signing a multi-year contract for the first time in his career.

As well as forging a close relationship with rookie teammate Lando Norris off-track, Sainz was able to impress behind the wheel as he finished sixth in the championship, leading the midfield drivers.

He also led McLaren to fourth place in the constructors' championship, its best finish since 2012.

According to the latest reports, Daniel Ricciardo may have signed with McLaren. Many believe the Australian is a front-runner for the vacant seat at Ferrari in 2021. However, Ricciardo could be on his way to the Woking outfit next year. As with all rumors, take these reports with a grain of salt.

Ferrari opting for Sainz

As things stand, there’s a seat available at Ferrari next year. With Sebastian Vettel and the Scuderia parting ways, a very lucrative drive just opened up. Naturally, any driver would like a shot at the most iconic team in F1 history.

According to several reports, Ferrari is considering 3 potential replacements for Vettel’s seat. The drivers in consideration are Daniel Ricciardo, Carlos Sainz, and Antonio Giovinazzi. Many believe the Maranello outfit will choose between Sainz and Ricciardo. News from the rumor mill reports that Ferrari has decided its 2021 driver lineup and will announce it soon.

Apparently, Ferrari is going ahead with Sainz and not Ricciardo as its second driver next season. While not many may agree with Ferrari’s decision, the Italian team has its own priorities to consider. However, Ricciardo may still emerge unscathed after all of this.

According to noted Italian journalist Leo Turrini, McLaren is replacing the departing Sainz with Ricciardo.

Daniel Ricciardo to McLaren?

“Sainz is a solid driver, but it must also be said that in several years he has made a podium only, even if he has never had great means available. It is not the name that warms the heart. Ricciardo? It seems he has already signed with the McLaren “ Turrini was quoted saying.

Losing a Ferrari seat is painful but the honey badger could be heading to a team that definitely has World Championship winning potential. McLaren has been on a roll as of late and has seen positive growth over the years. Furthermore, the team finished a commendable fourth in the Constructors’ Championship in 2019.

Not to mention McLaren’s biggest change from 2021. McLaren will be switching to Mercedes’s power from next season, giving the team plenty to be cheerful about.

Losing Ricciardo after a shortened stint would be a huge loss to Renault. However, the team needs a suitable replacement and is probably keeping an eye on a certain 4 times World Champion.

Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko opened up on the possibility of Daniel Ricciardo returning to the team. Marko believes there’s a very slim chance of the Aussie re-joining Red Bull. Furthermore, the Austrian stressed that Albon’s performance this season would decide the team’s choice for 2021.

Could Daniel Ricciardo return to Red Bull?

For those unaware, Daniel Ricciardo’s contract with Renault expires at the end of 2020. It’s no secret that the honey badger is open to joining other teams, should the chance arise. Moreover, Ricciardo recently proclaimed that he wouldn’t rule out a possible Red Bull return in the future.

While Red Bull is a much better alternative to Renault, in terms of World Championships and wins, it’s unlikely for the Milton-Keynes outfit to release Alex Albon. Albon only joined the team in the second half of 2019 and has grown leaps and bounds in a short duration. Yes, he’s not matching or beating Max Verstappen, but who really can, given his current form?

Moreover, Red Bull wouldn’t want another repeat of Ricciardo-Verstappen tensions within the garage.

While the Daniel and Max pairing resulted in a strong driver line-up, it created a lot of headaches for Red Bull. It became clear in 2018 that the team couldn’t manage two alpha drivers trying to assert dominance over the team.

Daniel walked away from Red Bull partly due to his strained relationship with Max and the internal politics of the Austrian team. Max and Daniel tripping over each other once again wouldn’t do Red Bull any favors.

Marko believes Red Bull will keep Albon unless he performs very poorly. Speaking to Sport1, Marko said:

“If Alex Albon performs as he did last year – and I strongly believe – he will stay.

Therefore Ricciardo has almost no chance. Only if Albon has a total slump for some reason will we to think about other pilots, but that doesn’t just include Ricciardo. “

However, not all is lost for the honey badger. Today, Ferrari dropped a bombshell, announcing Vettel’s release from the team in 2021. With a very competitive seat up for grabs, Ricciardo’ll be keeping a close eye on Ferrari’s moves.

Two days after it was announced Sebastian Vettel would be leaving Ferrari at the end of 2020, the Italian team have confirmed Carlos Sainz as Charles Leclerc’s new team mate from 2021 onwards.

Sainz, 25, will join the Italian squad on a two-year deal after two seasons at McLaren, creating the youngest driver pairing in Ferrari’s recent history in the process.

In the second big driver move of the week, McLaren have announced the signing of Daniel Ricciardo for 2021 on a "multi-year" deal.

Ferrari revealed on Tuesday that Sebastian Vettel would be leaving the team at the end of the year – a move which has triggered a host of other driver switches up and down the grid.

McLaren today confirmed that Carlos Sainz is leaving the Woking team, with Ferrari expected to announce the Spaniard as Vettel's replacement later today, and following that switch McLaren have moved swiftly to slot Ricciardo into the seat Sainz is vacating.

The Australian is currently partway through a two-year deal with Renault after he left Red Bull at the end of 2018 to join the French manufacturer, but has now clearly decided McLaren are a better bet for his future, especially with Mercedes engines from next year.

Pirelli is planning to stop Formula 1 teams from making tyre selections for each grand prix and issue a standard allocation of compounds once the 2020 season begins.

The opening 10 races of the 2020 season have been called off as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, but plans are in place to begin the campaign in early July.

Two races are expected to be held in both Austria and Great Britain, while further dates for the rest of the calendar have emerged in recent days.

F1’s tyre supplier Pirelli has already been left with a stockpile of tyres after the opening races were called off, but will have to quickly return to production once plans for the start of the season are confirmed.

Speaking exclusively to Motorsport.com as part of the #thinkingforward series of discussions on motor racing’s response to the coronavirus crisis, Pirelli F1 chief Mario Isola explained the possible changes that lay ahead.

“If we have the first part of the season in Europe and then we move to Asia, and America, in a very short period, it means that for production, it will be quite a busy period,” Isola said.

“We probably have to produce something in the region of roughly 35,000 tyres in probably a couple of months, not in one year. You can imagine the impact on production. That is quite big.

“We are having discussion with the teams. And I have to say that they are quite flexible in order to find sensible solutions like, for example, a standard allocation or some flexibility in this respect to be ready to supply in a very short period of time.”

Pirelli makes three of its five dry compounds available to teams for each grand prix, who are then allowed to pick 13 sets, offering a chance for tactical differences between teams.

Teams are required to give Pirelli 14 weeks’ notice on tyre choices for flyaway races, and eight weeks for European rounds.

But Isola said he did not think teams would be too concerned about losing this flexibility, noting that most strategies converged come the races.

“I believe that it's feasible, considering that everybody's interested in restarting the season, and make everything possible in order to have the best solution,” Isola said.

"I don't see an issue with that. We are still happy to leave the choice to the teams, if it is possible. It depends on how much in advance we have the information of the events.

“I don't think that the standard allocation is freezing any different strategy, because you know that with the current system, we have some sets that have to be returned after each free practice and so on.

“We are not saying that each team has to return the same number of tyres or same type of tyres and so on. They will have the same allocation at the beginning of the event, but then they can end up with a different allocation for qualifying and the race. That is what happens today.

“If I look at the last year, we had teams are choosing different sets of tyres, different compounds, but then they converge for qualifying and the race to have more or less the same allocation.

“I don't think there is a real issue with that.”

Isola said the change to allow this in the sporting regulations would need to be approved by a majority vote from the teams.

“For this year there is a bit more flexibility for the FIA to change the rules. It doesn't require unanimity,” Isola said.

“Obviously there is a flow, there is a system in place and it has to be respected. I believe that for urgent decisions, the World Council can also use the e-vote system as happening in the last couple of months for other decisions.”

The McLaren Group has announced that it will cut 1,200 jobs as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, with around 70 expected to be lost from its Formula 1 team.

McLaren was the first F1 team to take advantage of the United Kingdom’s job retention scheme, furloughing many staff when income levels dropped dramatically. The supercar manufacturer has taken a further hit due to the lack of new car sales during the first half of 2020, leaving the company assessing options to raise over $300 million to help it through the crisis.

The FIA has approved a new, reduced cost cap for F1 teams and a new sliding scale rule for aerodynamic testing after a vote of the World Motor Sport Council on Wednesday.

A cost cap had already been agreed by the teams and the sport's governing body, but after Wednesday's vote the cap for 2021 will be lowered from the original figure of $175m per year to $145m, with further reductions in the following years.

The new, reduced cap has been brought in as a response to the coronvirus pandemic that has delayed the start of the 2020 F1 season, which has in turn had a serious effect on the finances of the teams.

The other big announcement from Wednesday's vote concerns a brand new sliding scale for aerodynamic development, which is also set to be brought in for 2021.

Under the agreement, the lower a team finishes in the constructors' championship, the more wind tunnel time it will be allowed to use to develop the car the following year.

It is hoped the move will allow the field to close up and prevent the bigger teams from gaining too much of an advantage over those with less resources.

The FIA has also approved a measure to limit downforce on the 2021 cars. With key parts of the cars – such as the chassis and suspension – staying fixed from 2020 to 2021 the new rule means teams will have to trim part of the floor to reduce the downforce created, largely so a new tyre compound will not be needed for next season, before a switch to 18 inch tyres in 2022.

History will be made next season, when Formula 1 introduces a radical new sliding scale for aerodynamic testing based on a team’s success on track.

As part of a package of changes to the regulations, which includes the introduction of a cost cap from 2021 that has been revised to reflect the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, teams will be restricted to the number of wind tunnel testing runs and computer aided design (CAD) hours they can do to develop their racing car.

It is hoped that as well as reducing costs and making both individual teams and the championship more sustainable, it will also create a more level-playing field that should lead to more competitive and unpredictable racing.

In years gone by, the amount of aerodynamic development was unrestricted. It meant some teams ran their wind tunnels 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Some teams even ran more than wind tunnel.

That kind of development helped teams gain crucial tenths of seconds, but was hugely expensive.

In recent times, restrictions have been introduced, to the point that up until this year, teams were limited to 65 runs in the wind tunnel per week.

But next season, in conjunction with the introduction of the cost cap, the default allowance will be reduced by more than 30% to just 40 runs per week.

Furthermore, for the very first time, each team’s allowance of wind tunnel and CFD testing time will be defined by on-track performance.

It’ll be based on the championship position at the end of the previous season and then reset on June 30 each year to reflect the current state of play.

For 2021, if the pecking order remains the same, Mercedes will receive 90% of the testing allocation, which translates to 36 runs per week (just under half of what they had for this season). The allocation then increases as you go down the grid in championship order, as you can see in the table below.

At the other end of the scale, Williams in 10th (or any new team entering F1) would have a significantly higher allowance of 112.5% or 45 runs per week.

From 2022 onwards, the allocations reduces for all bar the 9th- and 10th-placed teams. The top team would receive 70%, which sees their allocation drop to 28 runs per week. The 9th-placed team would receive the same allocation as the previous year, while the 10th-place team will see an increase by one run to 46.

The aim is to cut costs and level the playing field.

“Will it level the playing field over the course of a season? Probably not,” says F1 Head of Aerodynamics Jason Sommerville, who has been part of the team shaping the new Technical Regulations. “But over the course of a few seasons, it’s very unlikely you will not see a closing of the grid.”

It’s from 2022 that we should really see change, as that is when teams will start from a blank sheet of paper courtesy of wholesale changes to the Technical Regulations in a bid to improve the quality of racing.

While teams will have already started work on those cars, there is a ban in place on further work until January 2021 - and there are also expected to be further modifications to the rules.

“It won’t quite be a reset, but there will be a few modifications to the rules so when they start in January, they’re almost going to be starting from zero again,” adds Sommerville. “Then it’s up to you as a team to decide how you use your wind tunnel runs.

“If you’re Mercedes, how many of your 28 runs do you devote to your 2021 car and how much do you devote to 2022? That’s a difficult decision. Depending on where you are in the competitive order, you may not want to give up on current car.”

Teams like Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull will need to be even more efficient than they already are with how they use their wind tunnel and CFD time.

“Everyone has 65 runs per week, and I think everyone pretty much uses all of their runs,” says Sommerville. “That’s how they find improvements on their car so over the course of a season, there is a steady drumbeat of new designs to steadily make your car faster.

“If a team like Mercedes or Ferrari have less of that time, there’s no doubt that they will feel some pain to some degree. If you shift bias to the smaller teams they will make improvements where perhaps the bigger teams won’t.

“But it’s also worth saying a wind tunnel run isn't worth the same for all teams. A Mercedes wind tunnel run is arguably more efficient, because they have a very well-funded, very strong aerodynamics group so over course of years, they have made the process efficient.”

With more hours available, the teams who have finished lower down the order can be more aggressive with their development.

The additional time gives them the capacity to explore more diverse aerodynamic ideas, which if successful, could help them climb the pecking order.

Ultimately though, having extra time won't make you faster - it's how you use it...

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen will have to wait until 2021 to race in front of his home crowd, following the news that the Dutch Grand Prix, set to be held at the newly-reconfigured Zandvoort circuit, won’t be taking place in 2020 due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

With early races in the delayed 2020 season set to be held behind closed doors, the Dutch organisers took the decision that, rather than pursuing a fan-less Grand Prix, they would prefer to delay Zandvoort’s return to the calendar – for the first time since 1985 – until next year.

“We were completely ready for this first race and we still are,” said former F1 driver and Dutch Grand Prix sports director Jan Lammers in a statement.

“We and Formula 1 have investigated the potential to hold a rescheduled race this year without spectators, but we would like to celebrate this moment, the return of Formula 1 in Zandvoort, together with our racing fans in the Netherlands. We ask everyone to be patient. I had to look forward to it for 35 years, so I can wait another year.”

Organisers made clear that anyone who’d bought tickets for the 2020 race would be able to use them when the Grand Prix takes place in 2021 – while refunds would also be available.

The tight, winding Zandvoort track had been extensively re-worked ahead of its return to the Formula 1 calendar, with a number of corners having been banked to better accommodate the speeds of modern F1 machinery.
But although the news means that the drivers will have to wait another year before being let loose on the iconic circuit, they can at least get their eye in on Codemasters’ F1 2020 game, which the track features in.