Hamilton will join the Scuderia next year, where he will partner Charles Leclerc, leaving Sainz out in the cold.

The Spaniard had hoped to have his future locked away with Ferrari before the season began before the Hamilton curveball arrived in January.

Since then, the three-time race winner has been forced to reassess his next move and extend his own timeline for a new deal.

The 2025 driver market is especially fluid, with only Ferrari and McLaren with both drivers confirmed.

That potentially leaves front-running drives available at Red Bull Racing or Mercedes and less competitive options that promise to be more of a project.

Sainz has been linked with a move to Audi, which will formally enter F1 in 2026 but will soon assume full control of Sauber in readiness for that.

“I mean, talking obviously to a few because that’s what my management team and myself should do when I don’t have a job for next year yet,” the 29-year-old said of his discussions with potential new teams.

“We’re talking to pretty much all of them. It’s just a matter of obviously going more into detail and seeing the more realistic options and what are the best options for me and for my future, which I don’t have any news for you or nothing to say here today.

“The only thing I would say is that obviously it’s time now to speed up a bit everything and hopefully we can get it sorted sooner rather than later.”

Sainz is the better-performing of Ferrari’s two drivers so far this year, having won in Australia and finished third in Bahrain and Japan. He missed the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix when he was diagnosed with appendicitis on Saturday morning of the event.

Even with that absence, he sits fourth in the drivers’ championship, only four points behind team-mate Leclerc.

Such has been his form that, in Australia, Red Bull boss Christian Horner singled Sainz out as an especially interesting free agent.

“We want to feel the best pairing that we can at Red Bull Racing and sometimes you got to look outside the pool,” he said.

“Based on a performance like that, you couldn’t rule any possibility out.”

At Mercedes, the early favourite to step in for Hamilton appears to be Kimi Antonelli, the squad’s promising junior who is currently in his first year of Formula 2.

He’ll have his first taste of F1 machinery in the near future, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s a shoo-in for the seat alongside George Russell.

Where the team expects to be next year, ahead of the introduction of new rules in 2026, will also play a part in its driver decision.

“I believe that we are in a rebuild phase,” Wolff explained.

“We need to acknowledge that now, three years into these regulations,” he explained.

“We’ve got to do things differently to what we’ve done in the past without throwing overboard what we believe is goodness in the way we operate.

“And rebuild could mean putting a young driver in there and giving him an opportunity with less pressure and fighting for victories immediately, or putting a more experienced driver in the car that can help us dig ourselves out of the current performance picture.”