As Ferrari’s capture of Lewis Hamilton was announced ahead of the 2024 season, Carlos Sainz, the man he was about to replace, was left spending every race win or podium wondering if it would be his last.
With no top seat available for the foreseeable future as Red Bull and Mercedes decided against hiring the Spaniard, Sainz found refuge at Williams. A challenging restoration project which he embraced, but also a gamble with no guarantee the midfield team would be able to deliver on its promise of turning things around with team boss James Vowles and fresh investment.
While Williams still has a long road to walk to become a frontrunning operation, the 2025 season showed marked progress, with the team delivering an improved car that allowed Sainz and team-mate Alex Albon to take the Grove squad to fifth in the standings.
But thus far it has mainly been Albon drawing the plaudits for the best season of his career, with Sainz emphatically stuck in his shadow. The Spaniard initially found it harder than anticipated to adjust from Ferrari’s machinery to his new car, and also bore the brunt of reliability issues and operational mistakes, adding a few driving errors of his own. It meant Albon went into the Baku weekend on 70 points – thanks to three fifth-place finishes – compared to Sainz’s 16.
Carlos Sainz capped off an emotional Ferrari swansong with a podium in Abu Dhabi, wondering if it would be his last in F1
Photo by: Ferrari
Sainz’s performance was nowhere as bad as that scoreline suggests, and he has gradually gotten close to Albon on pace, but frustration was clearly building over the lack of luck.
When asked after his 2024 Abu Dhabi podium on an emotionally charged Ferrari send-off if he would be able to return to the rostrum any time soon with his new employer, he replied: “That is a question that I cannot answer. It’s impossible to predict the future, impossible to know how long it’s going to take me and Williams to be back fighting for podium positions.
“What I can tell you is that I’m as determined as ever to help that team to be back where it belongs. I personally feel like I belong to be fighting for wins, podiums and top fives in Formula 1. I think I’ve proven it these last four years as a driver.”
Sainz won’t have to wonder any longer, as that question was emphatically answered on Sunday in the streets of Baku with a faultless drive from second on the grid, laying the groundwork with an outstanding qualifying lap in tricky, gusty conditions when drivers in better equipment stumbled.
Photo by: Steven Tee / LAT Images via Getty Images
The turbulent 18 months Sainz has experienced go a long way towards explaining why opening his account for Williams felt even better than his maiden podium, for McLaren at the 2019 Brazilian Grand Prix.
“This one means even more just because of a year ago when I put my bet on Williams, and I said I’m going to this team because I truly believe in this project, and I truly believe that this team is on the rise,” he said after soaking in the occasion – and a copious amount of Moet.
“I’m very comfortable in this working environment, also very comfortable with everyone around me. 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.”
Few would have expected Sainz to take a first podium for Williams before his Ferrari replacement Hamilton got his, but that’s exactly what has transpired. But whether or not a fleeting thought of revenge had even briefly crossed his mind, Sainz is far too classy to say so in public.
“What everyone else does is not my business, to be honest,” he replied when the Hamilton statistic was put to him. “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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Despite benefitting from a mixed-up starting grid, Sainz was good value for his podium, with Williams genuinely rapid down the Baku straights, but he is under no illusion that repeat heroics will be tough this year.
“I think this podium is – unless something crazy happens – maybe our best chance,” he said. “Probably Las Vegas will be our next best track to try and maybe put together a top five or a top six, which is what we sometimes can achieve when everything goes right. I’ll fight for it if it comes, like you’ve seen today.
“But the rest, for example in Qatar, I don’t think we will score points. That’s how much our performance swings. But then we will have the Austins, the Mexicos. We will be a pure midfield car where we can maybe get in the points and keep our championship going.”
But while Williams’ focus is firmly on 2026 and beyond and everything that happens now is just a bonus, the morale boost from Sainz’s maiden Williams rostrum cannot be understated. If the team has its way, it is a first, tantalising glimpse of what the future could hold and a further evidence that the nine-time world champions have the right drivers to guide them into a new era. While Albon suffered a rare shocker of a weekend, he joined the team saluting Sainz underneath the podium.
For Sainz himself, it felt like a tasty reward for one of the most character-building periods of his career.
“I think life has taught me many times that this sometimes happens; that you have a run of misfortune or bad performances, but if you keep working hard then suddenly life gives you back something really sweet like this.”
Photo by: Clive Rose / Getty Images
