Carlos Sainz has hinted that a future return to Ferrari is still on the cards.

The Spaniard will be leaving the renowned Italian team after the conclusion of the 2024 season finale in Abu Dhabi to make way for seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton.

Team principal Frederic Vasseur maintains that Sainz, who is 29, has done nothing wrong.

"Calling Carlos to tell him he wouldn't be re-confirmed," replied the Frenchman when asked by Corriere dello Sport about his most challenging moment at Ferrari.

"Almost everything," Vasseur added when questioned on what he would 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."

Despite this, the best opportunity available to Sainz 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 silver lining for Sainz is that his rapport with Ferrari seems to remain strong, with no bridges burned. "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."