Carlos Sainz’s first ‘Smooth Operation’ at Williams
Prior to Baku, Carlos Sainz’s start to life at Williams had been a mixed bag to say the least.
The Spaniard was down in P18 in the Drivers’ standings, 54 points behind team-mate Alex Albon, and without a single point in the last six races.
But the underlying performance has always been there, the gap between Albon and Sainz in qualifying is among the smallest between team-mates this year, with an average of just 0.061s in Albon’s favour – closer than the one between Norris and Piastri.
Bad luck on Sundays, whether it be technical issues, collisions or penalties, has prevented Sainz from converting promise into points.
At Baku, however, the former Ferrari driver delivered in a big way.
On Saturday, taking advantage of a chaotic qualifying session which saw a record six red flags, including crashes to Piastri and Charles Leclerc, Sainz shocked the world when he qualified on the front row next to Verstappen.
When asked what his goal from there was, the Spaniard said he was going for a podium place, a target that still seemed a tad unrealistic even if the long straights of Azerbaijan’s capital suited the Williams.
But on Sunday, despite losing a place thanks to a well-executed pit strategy from George Russell, Sainz genuinely kept the pace and made sure he was on the podium come the chequered flag, a remarkable achievement that has vindicated his move to the Grove team.
Sainz said post-race: “Honestly, I cannot describe how happy I am or how good this feels. It tastes even better than the first-ever podium that I did.
“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 when everything comes together, we can do some amazing things together.”
Team Principal James Vowles praised F1’s ‘Smooth Operator’ for “driving his socks off all weekend.”
Vowles added: “I’ve wanted him to have a great result like this since the beginning of the year. You could see it was on the cards, it just never came together for one reason or another.
“This suddenly builds your confidence and momentum and allows you to step forward – that’s what I wanted for Carlos.
“I think he definitely needed it. We all needed it as a team, though. It just shows to the world that this is absolutely where we are and this is the journey we’re on together.
With the 15-point haul in Baku, Sainz has climbed to P12 in the Drivers’ standings with 31 points, still a long way off his team-mate Albon (70), but surely with so much more confidence to narrow that gap further by the end of the year.
Another false dawn at Ferrari?
Once again this season, Ferrari started the weekend on a positive note, only for it all to unravel by the end of the Grand Prix.
Both Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton impressed during practice, the former finished P2 and P3 in the two opening sessions, while the latter topped the timing charts in FP2.
Ferrari would have also been encouraged by the fact Leclerc had achieved pole position in each of the last four races at Baku, but qualifying was where it all started to go wrong for the Scuderia.
An off at Turn 1 for Leclerc brought out the yellow flags in Q2, which compromised Hamilton’s run on the soft tyres, a strategy the seven-time world champion criticised after qualifying.
By the time Hamilton got a lap in, his tyres were spent, and so he had to start the race in P12.
While Leclerc did progress to Q3, he ended up lining up just two places ahead of his team-mate after a crash at Turn 15 left him timeless in the final part of qualifying.
During the race, while both Hamilton and Leclerc finished in the points, P8 and P9 respectively, and fought with McLaren’s Norris, progress was minimal throughout.
The team also suffered a mix-up at the end of the race, with Hamilton failing to slow down enough to let Leclerc through, as the Monegasque had for him earlier on in the race.
Leclerc said post-race: “We’ve got to react. It’s not been a strong weekend at all.”
“We have some explanations, first is probably the approach that I’ve had on the set-up, which hasn’t been the right one. Second, I think our car is struggling whenever it’s cool and it’s been quite cold since yesterday and that made us struggle.
“But I think the main reason, and I am the first one responsible [for] that, is the mistake in qualifying. When you start P10, it’s very difficult to change the situation.”
Hamilton was pleased to get into the points but shared his team-mate’s thoughts that the damage was done in qualifying.
He said: “I think our ultimate pace was not great in the race and I think I lost a lot of ground in the first stint, particularly on the hard tyre compared to the guys on the mediums. I came back towards the end but I think overall the pace was not really great and qualifying clearly is key.
“I think it just shows that qualifying is everything, we didn’t operate perfectly yesterday so we’ve got some work to do but we’ll take it internally and try to improve.”
The result means Ferrari have lost P2 in the Constructors’ standings to Mercedes, who had a much more positive weekend.
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