Sainz and his management have been engaged in discussions with every F1 team that has an opening for next season when he will be replaced at Ferrari by Lewis Hamilton.
Until Fernando Alonso re-signed with Aston Martin last week, this left Sainz weighing up possible options at eight squads, as previously only Ferrari and McLaren had their 2025 line-ups locked in.
This selection is headlined by the possibility of Sainz going to Red Bull as a replacement for Sergio Perez or if Max Verstappen makes a shock choice to leave F1's current best squad as a result of the ongoing Red Bull management war and the Christian Horner scandal.
Red Bull, via Marko, was publicly courting the Sainz camp at Suzuka last time out and there Marko also claimed "Audi is making pressure" on the 2025 driver market.
This follows the long-held understanding that Audi had been eyeing signing Sainz ahead of its F1 entry in 2026 with its Sauber takeover, as the 29-year-old already had links to the manufacturer through his father's Dakar Rally outings in its RS Q e-tron machinery since 2022, including victory in the 2024 event.
But ahead of this weekend's returning Chinese Grand Prix, Marko added another intriguing element to the most high-profile confirmed 2025 driver contract saga so far early in this silly season.
In an interview with Austrian newspaper Kleine Zeitung, Marko said of Sainz: "We're talking to him, he's having his strongest season in F1, but he has a very lucrative offer from Audi that we can't match or beat.
Source: Autosport