Sainz takes ‘no satisfaction’ from Hamilton’s Ferrari ‘evils’

Twice on the podium with Williams while his Ferrari replacement recorded his first-ever season without a single top-three result in a grand prix, Carlos Sainz says he got no satisfaction from Lewis Hamilton’s troubles.

Instead, his joy came from those two podiums and quashing “doubts” that podiums would be achievable with Williams.

Carlos Sainz gets no joy from Lewis Hamilton’s ‘evils’

Sainz was informed even before the first lap of last year’s championship that his time with Ferrari was over as the team had signed Hamilton for the F1 2025 championship.

Winning in Australia just 13 days after an appendectomy, Sainz spoke with teams up and down the pit lane but was passed over by the likes of Red Bull and Mercedes.

Left with Audi and Williams as his final two options, the four-time grand prix winner signed with Williams despite the team having finished in the bottom two positions in the Constructors’ Championship five of the last seven seasons.

This year Sainz, together with his teammate Alex Albon, has elevated Williams to fifth, bringing in 64 points with his teammate on 73.

F1 2025: The season’s winners and losers

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But what was widely noted on social media was that Sainz achieved a feat that the driver he was axed for could not, he finished on the podium.

Sainz finished on the podium in Azerbaijan and again in Qatar, while Hamilton recorded his first-ever season in Formula 1 without a single top three result in a grand prix.

That, though, is not something the Spaniard is celebrating.

“No, I am satisfied with my two podiums,” he told Marca when asked if he could find some satisfaction from Hamilton falling short. “I am not at all satisfied with the evil of another.

“I’m pleased that I’ve achieved two podiums with Williams in Baku and Qatar, and another in the Austin Sprint and I’m pleased to do it when last year there were many doubts about being able to achieve it.

“When I announced that I was going to Williams, I felt that some people felt sorry for me. It was a bit of a weird feeling. Some journalists, social networks, I don’t know, I didn’t see it that way.

“For me it was a new chapter, another opportunity, and when I arrived here in the paddock on the Tuesday of the Abu Dhabi 2024 test, dressed in a white helmet and overalls and got in the Williams and got to work, I was just thinking about the future. Not in the past.

“In the end look, this year things have gone well for me as I thought they could and that is what satisfies me the most.”

In a season in which Sainz’s former teammate Charles Leclerc also went without a grand prix win, Ferrari fell to fourth in the Constructors’ Championship with 398 points, less than half of that scored by championship winner, McLaren.

Asked if he thought Ferrari might miss him, he replied: “Well, I don’t think I can answer that question. I’m no longer there on a day-to-day basis, so at work I can’t tell you how they’re working and whether they miss me or not.

“On a more sentimental level, I would like to think that I left a good impression on my co-workers and the Tifosi. They were four very intense years and I have left great friends and professionals there. But, I insist, you would have to ask them that.”

At the end of a season in which Williams showed notable gains ahead of F1’s new regulatory set, Sainz is intent on joining his former McLaren teammate Lando Norris as a Formula 1 World Champion.

“I don’t care when, what I want is to be one,” he said. “I don’t care if I’m 40, 34, 36. I think that the moment to fight for your first World Championship, if it comes to you, which is saying a lot, can be at different times in your career.

“This year the opportunity came for Lando and Piastri. You have to be at the right time in the right car and of course be ready to fight it.

“As long as I arrive, I don’t care when. I’m willing to wait whatever it takes to be able to fight to be champion.”

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