Williams Racing Formula One driver Carlos Sainz has shrugged off the comparison with Lewis Hamilton after securing his first podium with the team this year at last weekend’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix. Sainz’s milestone in a midfield team is a stark contrast to Hamilton’s results in a strong team like Ferrari, as he has yet to deliver a top-three finish this season.
Hamilton’s Ferrari signing last year meant Sainz had to look elsewhere for a premier class racing seat. Eventually, he signed with the Grove-based outfit, impressed by team principal James Vowles’ long-term goal of making Williams a championship-winning outfit.
Quite naturally, moving from a team where he won many races and several podiums last year to a team where scoring points would be a challenge was a difficult pill for Sainz to swallow. Hamilton, on the other hand, was expected to be in top form, given his wish to secure an eighth title with Ferrari.
However, he has faced significant challenges in adapting to the SF-25 F1 car, often reporting his dissatisfaction with the car’s rear end. Notably, his best result with the Maranello-based outfit was his Chinese Grand Prix sprint race victory.
Sainz started the race at Baku City Circuit from P2 but lost one position to Mercedes’ George Russell. However, he managed to keep Andrea Kimi Antonelli at bay, finishing third at the end of the 51-lap race. Speaking about his achievement with Williams, a team that celebrated its first podium in the current ground effect era since 2022, Sainz said:
“I always said to the team from the beginning that whenever a first big opportunity of fighting for a podium comes, as long as we have everything under control and nothing goes wrong and we prove to everyone what we’re doing, and we get that podium, then I’ll be OK.
“And it’s exactly what ended up happening today. We had our chance starting from P2. Probably, if you asked many of us yesterday, we didn’t believe the podium was actually achievable with so many fast cars behind.
But I think we’ve had good pace this year, we just didn’t have many opportunities to show it. Today we had a very good opportunity to show our very good pace, and we managed to stay on the podium.”
When his achievement was compared with Hamilton’s at Ferrari, Sainz said:
“What everyone else does is not my business, to be honest. What I care about is that the first opportunity that I had to score a podium with Williams, and the first opportunity Williams had to score a podium, we took it, we scored it, and there it is.”
The Spaniard claimed that he has been very competitive among other drivers who switched teams this year. He added:
“I think out of everyone that’s changed teams — which is not an easy task nowadays — I’ve been very competitive from the first race, very quick, but I didn’t have results with me. I didn’t have results to prove to myself, the team, and everyone that some good things were about to come.
“But, in the end, they did. I think life has taught me many times that this sometimes happens — that you have a run of misfortune or bad performances, but then suddenly life gives you back if you keep working hard with something really sweet like this.”