Ferrari insiders give realistic chance of Carlos Sainz replacing Lewis Hamilton

Ferrari insiders reportedly think there is a realistic chance that Carlos Sainz will replace Lewis Hamilton at the F1 giants in a full reversal to the driving change that occurred ahead of the 2025 season. The Briton was snapped up by the Scuderia after opting to leave Mercedes, with his maiden Grand Prix outing for Ferrari coming in March at the season-opener in Australia.

Hamilton dazzled during a 12-year spell with Mercedes as he won six of his seven world titles with the Silver Arrows. But after the Brackley-based outfit slipped down the pecking order, the 40-year-old chose to move on. And Ferrari had no issues changing up their driver line-up as Sainz was axed in favour of the veteran.

Hamilton has struggled to assert his authority during his maiden campaign with Ferrari and has been left in the shadow of his colleague Charles Leclerc.

The Monegasque ace finished ahead of Hamilton in 12 of the 14 Grands Prix ahead of the summer break and has been responsible for all five of Ferrari's podium finishes this season.

Hamilton, meanwhile, looks bereft of confidence and even claimed after the qualifying session in Hungary last time out that he was "absolutely useless" and that his team "probably need to change driver."

According to The Race F1 Podcast, Sainz would be welcome back at Ferrari, with the Spaniard said to be incredibly highly thought of within the organisation.

There would have been a lot of people behind the scenes at the Scuderia who would have been absolutely fine with Sainz continuing as Leclerc's team-mate because he was doing a very, very good job there.

And if Hamilton were to walk away from Ferrari at the end of the season, Sainz would be a fairly logical person to replace him.

Hamilton, who finished 12th at the Hungarian Grand Prix last time out, spoke in a cryptic manner ahead of the summer break as he explained: "I'm looking forward to coming back. Hopefully, I'll be back, yeah.

"Naturally, it's a shame we're not as competitive as the guys at the front, but you've seen Charles has had a really strong run of the last two races."

And he was then defended by Ferrari chief Fred Vasseur, who explained: "He's demanding, but I think it's also why he's seven-times world champion, that he's demanding with the team, with the car, with the engineers, with the mechanics, with myself also. But first of all he's very demanding with himself."