Carlos Sainz says it’s possible he will return to Ferrari some day.
The Spaniard must leave the fabled Italian team after the 2024 season finale in Abu Dhabi to make way for seven time world champion Lewis Hamilton.
Team boss Frederic Vasseur insists Sainz, 29, did nothing wrong.
"Calling Carlos to tell him he wouldn’t be re-confirmed," answered the Frenchman, when asked by Corriere dello Sport what the most difficult moment of his Ferrari career so far.
"Almost everything," Vasseur added, when asked what he will miss about Sainz. "Team player, consistent, gives important advice.
"I will never forget that it was him who took me to the highest step of the podium for the first time, nor his fundamental contribution to last year’s recovery. And his determination made Charles (Leclerc) grow."
Nevertheless, Sainz’s best option for 2025 and beyond was a move to Williams.
"Of course I explored all the options available to me," he told DAZN at Zandvoort. "Obviously, at one point it looked like I still had a chance at Mercedes or Red Bull.
"So I gave it time to see how those situations evolved and when the options I had on the table were presented to me, Williams was the one that convinced me the most."
The good news for Sainz is that his relationship with Ferrari appears to be completely intact.
"Perhaps the most difficult thing to explain is that there is nothing that has not worked for me at Ferrari. It is simply that there is a seven time world champion who has decided that the last part of his sporting career is going to be at Ferrari and in that sense I have been a bit of a sacrifice.
"But I am leaving Ferrari with good results, with a good relationship with both Fred and Charles," Sainz continued. "I think we’ve made a good team together, we had victories and podiums, a good relationship with all the engineers, with the tifosi.
"So you can never close the door on a team like Ferrari, bearing in mind that I still have five or ten years of racing left," Sainz said.
"That’s why I think it’s important for me to enjoy these last 10 races without having any other worries in mind because you never know in life what can come next. Having been a Ferrari driver and being one for ten more races is something that I’m going to enjoy to the fullest and make the most of."