Carlos Sainz Jnr says his podium finish in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix shows how well he has been performing since he joined Williams.
Before finishing third in yesterday’s race, Sainz’s best result in a grand prix with his new team was eighth place. He said a combination of mistakes and misfortune had kept him from finishing higher.
“The key was probably just nailing a perfect weekend from practice, quali, to the race,” he said after the race yesterday. “It’s what I’ve been looking for since the beginning of the season, just to nail a perfect weekend.
“We had almost a perfect one in Jeddah when we scored maximum points. But then the rest of the season has been really up-and-down with a lot more downs than ups.
“[I was] very unlucky in some cases, the job was not well done in others — by me or by other things that were in our control.”
However he remained confident that the team could pull off a big result when the stars aligned for him. “I always said to the team from the beginning that whenever a first big opportunity of fighting for a podium comes, as long as we have everything under control and nothing goes wrong and we prove to everyone what we’re doing, and we get that podium, then I’ll be okay. And it’s exactly what ended up happening today.
“We had our chance starting from [second]. Probably, if you asked many of us yesterday, we didn’t believe the podium was actually achievable with so many fast cars behind. But I think we’ve had good pace this year, we just didn’t have many opportunities to show it.
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“Today we had a very good opportunity to show our very good pace, and we managed to stay on the podium. Only George managed to beat us with very good pace, but it was a very well-executed race.”
Sainz is one of several drivers who have changed teams this year, including Lewis Hamilton, who has taken his place at Ferrari. He said he has adapted quickly.
“I’m very comfortable in this working environment, also very comfortable with everyone around me,” he said. “And I have actually been pretty fast all year with the car.
“I think out of everyone that’s changed teams – which is not an easy task nowadays – I’ve been very competitive from the first race, very quick, but I didn’t have results with me. I didn’t have results to prove to myself, the team, and everyone that some good things were about to come.
“But, in the end, they did. I think life has taught me many times that this sometimes happens — that you have a run of misfortune or bad performances, but then suddenly life gives you back if you keep working hard with something really sweet like this.”
However Sainz said he isn’t particularly taking notice of the fact he scored his first podium for Williams before Hamilton took one for Ferrari. “What everyone else does is not my business, to be honest,” he said.
“What I care about is that the first opportunity that I had to score a podium with Williams, and the first opportunity Williams had to score a podium, we took it, we scored it, and there it is.”
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