Giving his support to his father’s bid for the FIA presidency, Carlos Sainz dismisses talk of a potential conflict of interest.
No sooner had Carlos Sainz Snr announced that he might run for election, immediately drawing wide support on social media – and no doubt within the F1 paddock – than the FIA appeared to move the goalposts, among other things suggesting a potential conflict of interest in that his son drives in F1.
Speaking in Imola, Sainz Jnr dismissed the suggestion.
“I’ve been trying to think of scenarios where it could,” he said, when asked about possible scenarios where it might be claimed there was a conflict, “but I actually don’t see any way how that could be seen.
“If anything, he will be extremely careful,” he continued, “I will be extremely careful, because the last thing that I want is my or his image or career to be damaged by that situation. So if anything, we would do the opposite effect and I don’t see any conflict.
“You personally know my dad or you personally know me. We are honest people that would never ever compromise that situation in motorsport.”
Asked, considering the fact that the current president won’t go without a fight, if his father is serious about running, Sainz said: “He’s considering it seriously,” he replied. “Like he said, he’s evaluating all the options, obviously now starting to think what team, what people, individuals he would like to have in his team.
“He’s trying to understand how the elections work, how much convincing, how many people he needs to obviously go and talk to, but he’s evaluating the whole thing and trying to understand how everything works.
“I think that’s a negative side, with the politics,” he admitted. “But I think that if there’s a guy that could remove politics from it, it could also be my dad because he sticks to common sense and very basic rules of going about life and things.
“I think that’s why so many people went to him to push him, maybe, to potentially do it. So there’s politics, he will probably not enjoy that part of the work, but he knows it’s part also and he will have to handle it.
“My dad is just non-stop,” said the Williams driver, “he loves motorsport, he loves racing, and he sees this as an opportunity to end his racing career but still do something further and find ways to give back to motorsport.
“Give back to the FIA, an entity that he has a lot of respect for all his years, and he knows what the FIA has done for the last 20-30 years to improve safety in motorsport, to improve everyone’s life here in motorsport. So he wants to, feels like he could give back and that motivates him.”
