There is no official press release from Maranello, but if Scuderia Ferrari president John Elkann keeps his word, Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz will renew their contracts with Ferrari.
With the two drivers out of contract this year, Ferrari F1 team principal Fred Vassell has said he is in no hurry to sign the deal and seems confident that Leclerc and Sainz will stay. However, it appears to be a completed deal.
According to Italian media reports, during Exor's investor day, Ferrari president John Elkann was asked about the driver's contract: "Sainz and Leclerc? One thing is for sure, they will still stay. Although this season was disappointing as we finished third in the tournament, we almost reached second place. ”
But in the last quarter of the championship we were also able to compete with Red Bull and we got a number of pole positions. Now we have to use all this to push again in the next tournament and turn more pole positions into wins," Elkan announced.
While both drivers have been linked to a move to Audi in 2026, Andreas Seidel is leading the project at Hinville's headquarters in Sauber, and reuniting with Sainz to build a new team is not a ridiculous concept.
But for now, it seems that both he and Leclerc will remain in red.
Both riders are likely to receive multi-year contracts, including base salaries and results-based bonuses. Last year, Leclerc narrowly beat Sainz in the 2023 F1 Drivers' Standings, failing to win races despite starting from pole position five times, cementing his reputation as one of the fastest drivers of his generation.
Sainz couldn't match Leclerc's lap speed, but the Spaniard was the only non-Red Bull driver to win last year when he took the win in Singapore. So, in terms of balance, the two Ferrari drivers were evenly matched.
So it seems wise to keep them until Ferrari has a car that wins regularly, so the rules of engagement will certainly change somehow.
For the 29-year-old, this will be his tenth season in F1, while the 26-year-old Leclerc will enter his seventh season in the top flight when he plays the 2024 F1 season opener in Bahrain next month.
Red Bull's Max Verstappen remains the absolute favourites to win the title ahead of the new season, and whether the other drivers are capable of competing for the title may only change after the first morning of the three-day Bahrain test, which begins on 21 February and lasts three days.