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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 – the small cadre of people centred around helping each driver perform at their maximum.

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’s Carlos Sainz, provides an insight into working with his cousin, his responsibilities, and dealing with the famous ‘silly season’.

Carlos Onoro has known Carlos Sainz his entire life. As his older cousin – Onoro’s mother and Carlos Sainz Senior are siblings – Onoro and Sainz have holidayed together, shared Christmas and New Years countless times, and, since 2017, have been travelling the world side-by-side.

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’s manager.

“Other than driving the car, I’m more or less involved in nearly every aspect of the driver’s life!” Onoro says.

“My role covers personal stuff like taxes, finances, lawyers – everything that Carlos needs away from the track – and on track, there’s the relationship with the team, contracts, sponsorships and just traveling around with him. In this hectic world we live in, I think it´s positive for him to have someone that he knows and he has confidence in.”

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 “even when Carlos [Junior] wasn’t yet born, when I was a little kid, we always gathered together to have lunch on Sundays and we’d stop lunch to watch the F1 race start, watching with my uncles and my father.”

He studied business administration and embarked on a career in finance, but remained passionate about motorsport, first attending the Singapore Grand Prix in 2015.

“I fell in love with it,” he beams. “As 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.”

Sainz was then a rookie with Toro Rosso but at the end of his sophomore season Onoro got a call from his uncle.

“From that day in Singapore we never discussed about working together until December 2016, where I had a first meeting with Senior,” Onoro recalls. “He 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.”

It meant a personal relationship suddenly had a business element added onto it.

“You have to be very careful when you’re working with family and friends,” Onoro says. “It 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.

“I 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.”

Onoro and Sainz speak most days and there is a transparency to the relationship.

“Every 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,” Onoro says.

“We 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.

“By 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.

“Throughout the years I’ve learned all the dos and don’ts, and that makes it easier for everyone in the end.”

One of the major elements associated with a manager is their role in Formula 1’s ‘silly season’, when rumours abound about which driver might be moving to which team – and in 2024, it was Sainz who was one of the biggest players in the market.

“It’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,” Onoro says of learning that his cousin had lost his Ferrari seat to Lewis Hamilton.

Fortunately the experience of both Onoro and Sainz helped, given prior moves to Renault, McLaren, and then Ferrari.

“It’s obviously a difficult moment, because you feel the responsibility of having to put your best efforts into that – trying to find a good contract for Carlos – whilst at the same time you need to keep dealing with the day-to-day things,” Onoro explains.

“So it’s 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.

“Senior 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?

“It’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.

“But 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.”

Onoro and Senior always have Sainz’s best interests at heart but the ultimate decision, such as in 2024 when Sauber, Alpine and Williams were prominent suitors for Sainz’s services, will always rest with the driver.

“The way I see it, our job is to put on top of the table all the available options for Carlos and then for him to decide,” Onoro says. “Carlos is also part of that process because we keep him updated and discuss strategy together along the way, and obviously we negotiate the best deal possible, but it’s for him to take the decision.

“If he wants my opinion as a manager, obviously I’ll give him my opinion, but I don’t like influencing him too much beyond where my responsibility goes, which is to put the contract on the table. It’s his future, it’s his career, and he’s the one that makes every final call.

“Once the decision is made by the driver, you communicate it to the team, get the paperwork and sign it. The rest is just obviously communicating it in the best way possible to the other contenders or the other teams and then to the public.

“We always try to keep it as professional as possible, trying to not burn any bridges because in this sport you never know what the future holds. We always try to be fair, honest and straightforward with every team. I think we’ve managed to do that so far.”

Sainz has had plenty of highs throughout his career – Onoro agrees that his swift return and recovery from appendicitis to win in Australia last year was “mind-blowing” – but it is the lesser heralded outcomes at other difficult moments that Onoro says are more rewarding.

“The proudest moments for me are those that people don’t see, which normally tend to be when he’s struggling a little bit with the car or he’s had a couple of bad races,” Onoro says. “I´ve seen him come out of situations where others would have crumbled.

“I think that his mental strength is impressive, and the proudest I felt is when he is capable of digesting those difficult moments and coming back stronger. I have a front seat to see all of that unfolding. This sport is cutthroat and you can easily fall apart if you’re not ready for it. And he’s very strong mentally.”

Onoro is clearly dedicated to furthering his cousin’s career prospects but also has his own life to live, shifting business commitments around spending time with his wife and young child. Nonetheless it is not a career that permits lengthy breaks.

“It’s a very demanding job and you always need to be on the phone,” Onoro says. “You always need to be ready. Checking social media as well to learn if there’s any news or rumours coming out. You always need to be connected.

“Honestly, I think I’m hooked up to my job 365 days and I’m pretty sure my wife would agree on that! I don’t think there’s a period of time throughout the year that I fully, fully, fully disconnect for a week.”

As if by comic timing our conversation is briefly interrupted.

“That’s the phone ringing! There’s obviously moments where you can relax a little bit more, but still you have an eye on your phone, you have an eye on your emails. It’s intense. But at the same time, if you love it like I do, it’s a pleasure to dedicate your working time to something that you’re passionate about and that you enjoy.”