Modern Formula 1 teams are huge companies with hundreds of employees all working hard to try to be the best in the sport. But within these vast organisations there are the teams within a team \u2013 the small cadre of people centred around helping each driver perform at their maximum.<\/p>\n
In a new series of features, Formula 1.com is delving into those bubbles to gain a greater understanding of the lives of those who work closely with the stars of F1. This week Carlos Onoro, manager of Williams Racing\u2019s Carlos Sainz, provides an insight into working with his cousin, his responsibilities, and dealing with the famous \u2018silly season\u2019.<\/p>\n
Carlos Onoro has known Carlos Sainz his entire life. As his older cousin \u2013 Onoro\u2019s mother and Carlos Sainz Senior are siblings \u2013 Onoro and Sainz<\/a> have holidayed together, shared Christmas and New Years countless times, and, since 2017, have been travelling the world side-by-side.<\/p>\n Onoro is one of the figures often spotted close to Sainz, in the background of photos or on the world TV feed, through his role as his cousin\u2019s manager.<\/p>\n \u201cOther than driving the car, I’m more or less involved in nearly every aspect of the driver’s life!\u201d Onoro says.<\/p>\n \u201cMy role covers personal stuff like taxes, finances, lawyers \u2013 everything that Carlos needs away from the track \u2013 and on track, there\u2019s the relationship with the team, contracts, sponsorships and just traveling around with him. In this hectic world we live in, I think it\u00b4s positive for him to have someone that he knows and he has confidence in.\u201d<\/p>\n Onoro was born into a motorsport family, with his father being a two-time Spanish rally champion and of course Uncle Carlos a motorsport legend (Sainz Senior is a two-time World Rally champion), which meant \u201ceven when Carlos [Junior] wasn\u2019t yet born, when I was a little kid, we always gathered together to have lunch on Sundays and we\u2019d stop lunch to watch the F1 race start, watching with my uncles and my father.\u201d<\/p>\n He studied business administration and embarked on a career in finance, but remained passionate about motorsport, first attending the Singapore Grand Prix in 2015.<\/p>\n \u201cI fell in love with it,\u201d he beams. \u201cAs you can imagine, for someone like me that has always been following the sport closely and watching the races on TV, to be able to get into the paddock with the access that going with a driver gives you and so on, it was insane.\u201d<\/p>\n Sainz was then a rookie with Toro Rosso but at the end of his sophomore season Onoro got a call from his uncle.<\/p>\n \u201cFrom that day in Singapore we never discussed about working together until December 2016, where I had a first meeting with Senior,\u201d Onoro recalls. \u201cHe basically asked me if this was something I would consider. I went home, had a chat with the pillow, and one day later I was sitting down with him and Carlos, and we discussed a little bit how it would work and so on, and went for it.\u201d<\/p>\n It meant a personal relationship suddenly had a business element added onto it.<\/p>\n \u201cYou have to be very careful when you’re working with family and friends,\u201d Onoro says. \u201cIt can be a very thin line. The first thing that we all agreed on was that that line had to be super thick! There was no way that we were going to mix up family business with business stuff. This was a primary objective, and I think we’ve done a good job at keeping it that way.<\/p>\n \u201cI always say that when we are working, I treat Carlos the same way I used to treat my partners at my previous jobs: same respect, same sort of relationship. Then when we are relaxed back at home in the summer or whenever, I’m his older cousin and we don’t talk about business. We can go and play golf or padel or be relaxed and go for dinner and not speak business.\u201d<\/p>\n Onoro and Sainz speak most days and there is a transparency to the relationship.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery available moment is good to work together. When we are at the track or travelling, even on an airplane where you have 10 hours, we try to book our seats together precisely to be able to open the laptop and go through the calendar or review things that are pending,\u201d Onoro says.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have the confidence to raise our hands when we see something that is not working properly or it’s not going as we would like it to go. We are confident to say: we need to change this, we need to look into this. It’s a very open relationship and we speak clearly about whatever it is that we need to discuss.<\/p>\n \u201cBy now I know what things he likes and what things he doesn’t like, and it’s also easy for me to translate that to the team. When we are discussing schedules, for example, between FP3 and Quali, no meet-and-greets or distractions are allowed, because it’s time that he needs to concentrate or be with his engineers and so on.<\/p>\n \u201cThroughout the years I’ve learned all the dos and don’ts, and that makes it easier for everyone in the end.\u201d<\/p>\n One of the major elements associated with a manager is their role in Formula 1\u2019s ‘silly season\u2019, when rumours abound about which driver might be moving to which team \u2013 and in 2024, it was Sainz who was one of the biggest players in the market.<\/p>\n \u201cIt’s no secret that it got us a bit by surprise, the same way that it got by surprise 99 per cent of the paddock,\u201d Onoro says of learning that his cousin had lost his Ferrari<\/a> seat to Lewis Hamilton.<\/p>\n Fortunately the experience of both Onoro and Sainz helped, given prior moves to Renault, McLaren, and then Ferrari.<\/p>\n \u201cIt’s obviously a difficult moment, because you feel the responsibility of having to put your best efforts into that \u2013 trying to find a good contract for Carlos \u2013 whilst at the same time you need to keep dealing with the day-to-day things,\u201d Onoro explains.<\/p>\n \u201cSo it\u2019s extra work, it’s long hours and it’s a lot of talking on the phone and not sleeping much. It really gets exhausting, but you need to be focused and you need to have a clear head and a clear strategy.<\/p>\n \u201cSenior plays his role in contract negotiations as well; on the day-to-day basis he is not that involved, but when it comes to F1 contracts, I think we do a good job together as a team, and we are always discussing: what’s the strategy? Who do we call next? How do we do this? Do we approach this team now or do we wait?<\/p>\n \u201cIt’s like a game of chess. You are preparing for a move, but you don’t really want to make it very obvious. So you need to be careful what pieces you’re moving on the chessboard. The moment you start talking to too many people around, then it starts leaking and [the media] get hold of it and then the rumours start going around and the silly season gets going.<\/p>\n \u201cBut it’s also interesting, and the silly season is always good fun. You hear rumours from here and there. Then you try to understand how much of which one’s true, which one’s fake, which one is 50-50.\u201d<\/p>\n