behind race winner Max Verstappen<\/a> and George Russell.<\/p>\nThe Spaniard\u2019s third place in Baku was also Williams\u2019 first podium at the street circuit since Lance Stroll stunned the field in 2017.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m just proud,\u201d Sainz told Sky Sports.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been quick all year. We\u2019ve adapted very quickly to this team and we are on the right trajectory, but I had no results to prove it to anyone.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis year has been extremely frustrating to not get results. Things out of my control, things in my control. Finally, a result on a day like today where I could show the pace is more what I needed.\u201d<\/p>\n
After qualifying second in a chaotic Saturday session, Sainz delivered a faultless 51-lap performance, keeping Antonelli at bay and showing the race pace he has insisted Williams possessed all season.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have good pace,\u201d said Sainz.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe struggle in quali, but in some races we can actually fight one Merc or one Ferrari. I\u00a0know I\u2019ve had the pace all year and if nothing happened to us, I could bring it home \u2014 and it\u2019s exactly what happened.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 31-year-old described the podium as \u201cone of my best races ever\u201d and admitted it carried extra significance given the challenges of his first year with Williams.<\/p>\n
\u201cHonestly, I cannot describe how happy I am or how good this feels,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt tastes even better than the first-ever podium that I did.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been fighting hard all year and finally we just proved that when everything comes together, we can do some amazing things together.\u201d<\/p>\n
Team principal James Vowles hailed Sainz\u2019s drive as \u201cexceptional\u201d and said the result reflected the effort of a team rebuilding from years at the back of the grid.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is one I\u2019ll remember forever,\u201d Vowles said.<\/p>\n
\u201cCarlos delivered a phenomenal race \u2014 an exceptional drive from start to finish, and a joy to watch.<\/p>\n
\u201cI believe in positive momentum, and this gives Carlos a real foundation to build on.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Sainz, the result also carried a personal edge, as he claimed his first podium of 2025 before Lewis Hamilton \u2014 the man who replaced him at Ferrari \u2014 could do the same.<\/p>\n
But the Spaniard insisted his focus remains firmly on the project at Williams.<\/p>\n
\u201cI always believed in this project,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is my life project. If I manage to bring Williams back to being competitive and winning races, it\u2019s everything that I care about, and I will put the next few years of my life, all my effort to doing that and committing to that.\u201d<\/p>\n
The result almost doubled his 2025 points tally to 31, lifting him to 12th in the drivers\u2019 championship and helping Williams crack the 100-point mark for the first time since 2016 as they strengthened their grip on fifth in the constructors\u2019 standings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was a return to the podium in Azerbaijan for Carlos Sainz. Image: XPB Images Sainz, who left…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":160863,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,98125,4971,806,805,803,804,85,819],"class_list":{"0":"post-160862","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-motosport","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-azerbaijan-gp","11":"tag-carlos-sainz","12":"tag-motor","13":"tag-motor-sports","14":"tag-motosport","15":"tag-motosports","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-williams"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160862"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160862\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/160863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Sainz](\"https:\/\/speedcafe.b-cdn.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/XPB_1374810_HiRes.jpg\")