Carlos Sainz Details How His Racing Star Dad Drove His F1 Pursuit — and Why He’s ‘Nervous’ to Keep the Legendary Name Alive

Carlos Sainz was quite literally born to race.

As the son of two-time World Rally Champion and four-time Dakar Rally winner Carlos Sainz Sr., the vision was always clear for the Formula 1 star, now driving for Atlassian Williams F1 Team. But while motorsport may have been in his blood, Sainz, 31, was determined to make a name for himself on his own terms.

In a candid sit-down with PEOPLE ahead of Father’s Day on Sunday, June 21, Sainz reflected on his early years growing up in a racing environment —notably how he got behind the wheel of a kart at age 3 (yes, age 3) — and how it’s fueled his passion with a standout career in the sport today.

“The first time that I went to a go-kart center, my dad took me at the time and put me on a go-kart, and I remember it being one of the best days of my life,” Sainz, who grew up in Madrid, tells PEOPLE exclusively, adding, “Just having the first experience, him coaching me a bit how to drive.”

“I was still three years old at the time,” he emphasizes. “You imagine very, very little memory because at three, you don’t remember everything, but that day I remember a lot.”

Sainz Sr., widely known by his “El Matador” nickname, is one of the most decorated, multi-surface rally drivers in motorsport history. He won the World Rally Championship (WRC) in 1990 and 1992 driving for Toyota, and won the Dakar Rally four times (2010, 2018, 2020 and 2024).

While Sainz was still a child at the time of his father’s massive career successes, there was a moment that he knew he was more than just “dad,” and rather one of the biggest names in the sport.

“Even though I went to see my dad rally since around age three to 10, when he retired from World Rally Championship [at the end of the 2004 season], I could appreciate that he was quite big and famous at the time,” Sainz shares. “But the biggest moment came in Madrid when he announced his retirement.”

“They closed the whole city for him, the city center, and they did kind of a goodbye,” he recalls. “I remember being amazed with how much people turned up for his farewell, and it was honestly quite shocking. And at that point I realized, ‘Okay, my dad is big. My dad is huge.’ And yeah, I have a name.”

But while Sainz Sr.’s reputation loomed large in the motorsport world, at home, he and his wife worked to give their kids a normal upbringing. Because of his racing schedule, Sainz Sr. spent much of the year on the road, which made the time he did spend at home more meaningful.

“For me, my dad didn’t take us to a lot of races. He was always of the idea of us going to school, doing our life while he was going away,” he says. “And in that case, my mom would take care of us. My dad used to spend around 250 days away from home, so that’s a long time.”

“What I remember very well is whenever he was home, it was like the best time because it was kind of a celebration, the fact that he was home,” Sainz remembers with a smile. “And everything would evolve more around him, and that made those moments with my dad very special.”

Sainz, who’s driven for several teams on the grid before landing with his current Atlassian Williams F1 Team, made his Formula 1 debut at the 2015 Australian Grand Prix, driving for Scuderia Toro Rosso. He’s driven for Renault (2017-2018), McLaren (2019-2020) and Ferrari (2021-2024) since then.

While he was behind the wheel at age three, Sainz says his dream to pursue professional driving “came a bit later” in life.

“I think when it was around the time he [Sainz Sr.] retired, I was 10 years old and he had a bit of more time to do things with me, and one day, he took me to the Formula 1 Spanish Grand Prix,” Sainz recalls. “People were stopping him in the paddock to take pictures.”

“I realized how big he was that even my F1 idols were taking pictures with my dad,” he says. “Then they let me jump into a Formula 1 car. I was a kid. I just would jump in the seat, see the steering wheel.”

It was that exact moment when Sainz knew, “I want to be an F1 driver.”

But as his karting career progressed, the rising star quickly learned that carrying one of motorsport’s most recognizable surnames came with its own challenges. While he initially approached racing as a way to have fun with friends, he soon realized many of his competitors viewed him differently.

“They weren’t just motivated to beat Sainz, but they were motivated to beat the son of Carlos Sainz Sr.,” he says.

“The world of go-karting is extremely tough. You get to compete with another hundred kids all around the world… And at that time I was probably a bit naive myself. It’s going to sound weird, but I was too good to my rivals. I believed I was friends with all of them,” Sainz recalls.

“I wanted to win, but I was naive, and I realized that maybe some of them wanted to beat me more than anyone else because I had a famous father,” he shares. “I remember getting bumped off the track, and you know how kids are at 13, 14… pretty nasty.”

Sainz remembers his dad telling him to “either bite or get bitten,” a mindset that still drives his competitive edge today.

“That made a click in my head that maybe there were more people against me than what I thought,” Sainz says, adding, “And I started being the aggressive one and being the tough one, and from there on, I think my career, I took a change of attitude and I started becoming definitely more aggressive.”

“That mindset is just natural to me,” he says.

It’s what’s driven his lengthy list of accolades and career accomplishments to date: four Grand Prix wins (British in 2022, Singapore in 2023, Mexico City in 2024 and Australia in 2024) and securing various top-three finishes across his tenures with McLaren, Ferrari and Atlassian Williams F1 Team.

Surely the father-son bond over the sport is what’s shaped Sainz as a person both on and off the track — but as to whether he’d want the pressures that come along with keeping the family legacy alive for his future children is a question that’s been on his mind.

“Especially more recently, now that I have become an uncle and a godfather of three nephews,” he tells PEOPLE. “They’re one and a half, one, and one month old and definitely makes me see that side of life quite a lot closer now that I’m 31.”

“Something that I used to never think about, but for sure the last year and a half since my first nephew was born, I was like, ‘Okay, that’s probably closer to me and close to my next step knowing life,'” says Sainz, who’s in a relationship with model Rebecca Donaldson.

“Yeah, I always think about if I would like my son to be an F1 driver or not, and it makes me nervous,” he admits. “It makes me nervous because if I felt pressure carrying the name of Sainz, then he will have two times pressure, and I don’t want pressure for my kid.”

“I wish there was not the pressure that I had to carry,” he says, before proudly remembering: it’s what drove him.