Carlos Sainz says Williams ‘on the rise’ after ‘best podium of my career’ in Baku

Carlos Sainz hailed his P3 at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix as the “best podium of my career” following an impressive race in Baku.

A chaotic qualifying enabled Sainz to qualify second only to Max Verstappen on the grid, and the Spaniard converted his starting spot into a first podium of his Williams career.

Carlos Sainz reacts after impressive P3 at Azerbaijan Grand Prix

Since being removed from Ferrari in favour of Lewis Hamilton – who finished eighth in Baku – Sainz has struggled with misfortune and small mistakes, but those frustrations were firmly put behind him after he scored his first podium since Abu Dhabi 2024, and Williams’ first since Belgium 2021.

Speaking in the immediate aftermath, Sainz said over the team radio it was the “best podium of my career, and not the last” before saying it was a day when “everything comes together.”

“Honestly, I cannot describe how happy I am, how good this feels,” he said. “It tastes even better than my first ever podium that I did [Brazil 2019 for McLaren].

“We’ve been fighting hard all year, and finally today, we just proved that when we have the speed – we’ve had it all year – and everything comes together, we can do some amazing things together.

“Today, we nailed the race, not one mistake, and we managed to beat a lot of cars that yesterday I wasn’t expecting to beat.”

Williams team principal James Vowles has always suggested it was 2026 that his new-look team was focused on but a podium is the clearest sign yet that the team are moving in the right direction.

More reaction from the race in Baku

Azerbaijan GP: Piastri cracks as Verstappen claims the win ahead of Russell, Sainz

The updated F1 points standings after the Azerbaijan Grand Prix

“I’m extremely proud of everyone at Williams for pushing through a very difficult year,” Sainz said. “I think we’ve proven to everyone the massive step that we took compared to last year.

“We are on the rise. We are on the right direction. Unfortunately, with me, we’ve had a lot of bad luck, a lot of incidents, very difficult to convert all that pace into results, but now I understand why it all happened, because the first podium needed to come like this.

“It’s just life. Life just sometimes brings you those bad moments to give you a very nice one, and this tastes much better than any other thing that I was expecting.

“Life lesson is to keep believing, keep trusting yourselves, your team around you, your procedures, everything that you’re doing, because sooner or later, it always pays off.”

Read next: F1 LIVE: All the action as it happened from the Azerbaijan Grand Prix