As Ferrari’s seize of Lewis Hamilton was introduced forward of the 2024 season, Carlos Sainz, the person he was about to interchange, was left spending each race win or podium questioning if it could be his final.
With no high seat out there for the foreseeable future as Crimson Bull and Mercedes determined in opposition to hiring the Spaniard, Sainz discovered refuge at Williams. A difficult restoration mission which he embraced, but in addition a big gamble with no assure the midfield group would have the ability to ship on its promise of turning issues round with group boss James Vowles and recent funding.
Whereas Williams nonetheless has a protracted highway to stroll to grow to be a frontrunning operation, the 2025 season confirmed marked progress, with the group delivering an improved automobile that allowed Sainz and team-mate Alex Albon to take the Grove squad to fifth within the standings.
However to this point it has primarily been Albon drawing the plaudits for the very best season of his profession, with Sainz emphatically caught in his shadow. The Spaniard initially discovered it more durable than anticipated to regulate from Ferrari’s equipment to his new automobile, and likewise bore the brunt of reliability points and operational errors, including just a few driving errors of his personal. It meant Albon went into the Baku weekend on 70 factors – thanks to a few fifth-place finishes – in comparison with Sainz’s 16.
Carlos Sainz capped off an emotional Ferrari swansong with a podium in Abu Dhabi, questioning if it could be his final in F1
Picture by: Ferrari
Sainz’s efficiency was nowhere as dangerous as that scoreline suggests, and he has steadily gotten near Albon on tempo, however frustration was clearly constructing over the shortage of luck.
When requested after his 2024 Abu Dhabi podium on an emotionally charged Ferrari send-off if he would have the ability to return to the podium any time quickly along with his new employer, he replied: “That could be a query that I can’t reply. It is unattainable to foretell the longer term, unattainable to understand how lengthy it is going to take me and Williams to be again combating for podium positions.
“What I can let you know is that I am as decided as ever to assist that group to be again the place it belongs. I personally really feel like I belong to be combating for wins, podiums and high fives in Components 1. I feel I’ve confirmed it these final 4 years as a driver.”
Sainz will not must marvel any longer, as that query was emphatically answered on Sunday within the streets of Baku with a faultless drive from second on the grid, laying the groundwork with an excellent qualifying lap in difficult, gusty situations when drivers in higher tools stumbled.
Picture by: Steven Tee / LAT Photographs through Getty Photographs
The turbulent 18 months Sainz has skilled go a great distance in the direction of explaining why opening his account for Williams felt even higher than his maiden podium, for McLaren on the 2019 Brazilian Grand Prix.
“This one means much more simply due to a yr in the past after I put my guess on Williams, and I mentioned I’m going to this group as a result of I really imagine on this mission, and I really imagine that this group is on the rise,” he mentioned after soaking within the event – and a copious quantity of Moet.
“I’m very snug on this working setting, additionally very snug with everybody round me. And I’ve truly been fairly quick all yr with the automobile. I feel out of everybody that’s modified groups — which isn’t a simple activity these days — I’ve been very aggressive from the primary race, very fast, however I didn’t have outcomes with me.”
Few would have anticipated Sainz to take a primary podium for Williams earlier than his Ferrari substitute Hamilton received his, however that is precisely what has transpired. However whether or not or not a fleeting considered revenge had even briefly crossed his thoughts, Sainz is much too stylish to say so in public.
“What everybody else does just isn’t my enterprise, to be sincere,” he replied when the Hamilton statistic was put to him. “What I care about is that the primary alternative that I needed to rating a podium with Williams, and the primary alternative Williams needed to rating a podium, we took it, we scored it, and there it’s.”
Picture by: Andy Hone/ LAT Photographs through Getty Photographs
Regardless of benefitting from a mixed-up beginning grid, Sainz was good worth for his podium, with Williams genuinely speedy down the Baku straights, however he’s below no phantasm that repeat heroics will probably be robust this yr.
“I feel this podium is – until one thing loopy occurs – possibly our greatest probability,” he mentioned. “Most likely Las Vegas will probably be our subsequent greatest monitor to try to possibly put collectively a high 5 or a high six, which is what we typically can obtain when every thing goes proper. I’ll battle for it if it comes, such as you’ve seen at this time.
“However the remainder, for instance in Qatar, I don’t assume we are going to rating factors. That’s how a lot our efficiency swings. However then we can have the Austins, the Mexicos. We will probably be a pure midfield automobile the place we are able to possibly get within the factors and hold our championship going.”
However whereas Williams’ focus is firmly on 2026 and past and every thing that occurs now could be only a bonus, the morale enhance from Sainz’s maiden Williams rostrum can’t be understated. If the group has its means, it’s a first, tantalising glimpse of what the longer term may maintain and an additional proof that the nine-time world champions have the proper drivers to information them into a brand new period. Whereas Albon suffered a uncommon shocker of a weekend, he joined the group saluting Sainz beneath the rostrum.
For Sainz himself, it felt like a tasty reward for one of the vital character-building intervals of his profession.
“I feel life has taught me many instances that this typically occurs; that you’ve got a run of misfortune or dangerous performances, however in case you hold working laborious then all of a sudden life provides you again one thing actually candy like this.”
Picture by: Clive Rose / Getty Photographs
