From Struggles to Williams' glory: Carlos Sainz's Historic Baku 2025 Podium
ByNikita Nayak
•October 19, 2025•7 min readFormula One, or simply F1, is known as the pinnacle of motorsport across the world. From raging rivalries and championship battles to heartfelt stories and cheating scandals, this sport has it all. It is the fastest single-seater racing series in the world, where cars reach speeds of up to 360km/hr. Twenty drivers compete every year across a global calendar of races, each known as a Grand Prix. There are ten teams in total, and each team has two drivers who race under a specific racing number.
Each season, drivers battle for the Drivers’ Championship, while teams fight for the Constructors’ Championship, making F1 not only a test of driver skill but also a showcase of cutting-edge engineering and strategy. There are three practice sessions and a qualifying session before each full-length race, which generally is spread over three days on weekends.
What makes the recent 2025 Azerbaijan GP so memorable? It can be alluded to the fact that one of the historically dominant teams in F1, Williams, ended their podium drought after eight years. What makes it special is that the podium place was won by none other than Carlos Sainz Jr, who, as a Ferrari driver in 2023, had —in a move that raised more than a few eyebrows —been replaced with Lewis Hamilton for the 2025 and future seasons.
Carlos Sainz losing his seat at a time when F1 had undergone a lot of regulatory changes and ownership changes meant he didn’t have many good options for a new seat. Fortunately, a lot of midfield as well as backmarker teams were very interested in signing him. And so, in the latter half of 2024, Carlos signed with Williams as one of their drivers alongside Alex Albon.
Williams is one of the three historically heavyweight teams that have shaped F1, alongside Ferrari and McLaren. But they had lost their shine and glory after the early 2000s. Williams’ last full-length race podium came in 2017, when Lance Stroll stunned the F1 world with a third-place podium in the very same city of Baku. In the years that followed, the team was forced to endure its harshest era in modern Formula 1: shrinking budgets, underperforming machinery, and a relentless slide down the Constructors’ standings.
By 2020, Williams was regularly finishing last. The team fought to stay afloat financially, selling its ownership to new investors, undergoing restructuring, and slowly trying to rebuild its technical base. Even occasional flashes of brilliance, like the chaotic Belgian race in 2021, felt more like isolated miracles than a real resurgence. The 2021 race in the circuit in Spa-Francorchamps was controversial because the race never truly got underway. Torrential rain meant just two laps behind the safety car before it was called off, and half points were handed out based on qualifying. George Russell’s P2 that day was legendary for his qualifying heroics, but it wasn’t a podium earned in the heat of a race, and hence Lance Stroll’s podium is considered the true last Williams podium.
While initially there were a lot of doubts regarding Carlos’ future since Williams had placed ninth overall in the 2024 Constructors’ Championship, Carlos was confident that his decision would be fruitful. A lot of general discussion was around the fact that his expertise as a skilled driver and a strategic mastermind would awaken the sleeping giant, William,s and return them to glory.
In the first half of 2025, Atlassian Williams Racing (as they’re formally called) did have the speed and strengths, but a series of unfortunate incidents and other difficulties in adapting to a new car made Carlos’ 2025 F1 season his lowest in a few years. He was a lowly 19th in the Driver’s Championship, which was a source of much discomfort to him and the team. On the other hand, Alex Albon, who has been with the team for the past four years, managed to gain a lot of points because of his deeper understanding of the same car.
Fast forward to the Azerbaijan GP, and championship leader Oscar Piastri was touted to be the frontrunner for the weekend alongside his teammate in McLaren, Lando Norris, and current title defender Redbull driver Max Verstappen. However, because of difficult conditions like devolving track grip and strong winds in the qualifying that followed, the record for the most red flags in a qualifying session was broken, with six drivers crashing throughout the entire three-stage event. Throughout the sessions, Carlos remained at the top of the timing table, meaning he was comfortable enough with the car to put in lap times enough to compete against the frontrunners. This helped him to secure a provisional pole for the first part of Q3, where, technically, because of tough conditions, none of the drivers dared to challenge Carlos’ lap times.
With impending rain and the session halted, it was practically confirmed that Carlos would be on pole. However, a phenomenal effort by Max Verstappen in the last stages dropped Carlos down to second on the starting grid, with an unexpected third position by VCARB driver Liam Lawson. Alex Albon had, in contrast, been relegated to the back of the grid, and both McLarens had set poor lap times, putting them in the midfield.
On the race day, for the first time, there was a possibility of not only a podium, but a win should everything went in Carlos’ favour. All eyes were on the McLarens because if they could score well, they would automatically secure the Constructors’ Championship in their favour.
After a jump start triggered anti-stall, Oscar Piastri was swallowed up by the pack before Turn 1. Desperate to recover, he locked up in Turn 5 and crashed into the wall, ending his race before it ever really began. This created doubts about Oscar Piastri’s mental focus on the championship as the entire weekend had been one to forget for him.
Piastri’s crash led to a safety car restart, after which Carlos drove a brilliant race, holding off the Mercs till George Russell cleverly undercut him, leading to Carlos losing position and being hounded by Kimi Antonelli in the second Mercedes. Carlos then managed the last few laps using his strategic decision, which helped him stay ahead of the faster Mercedes car.
Carlos capped his weekend off by securing a third-place podium and proving he still had it in him to deliver when it mattered. The contrast between Williams’ euphoric celebration in Baku and Scuderia Ferrari’s clipped congratulations from Carlos’ time with them couldn’t have been starker.
In Ferrari red, his victories were met with the expected grandeur: a polished, practiced routine of cheers, champagne, and controlled emotion from a team accustomed to catering to their supposed first driver, Charles Leclerc.
But in Williams blue, this podium felt seismic. Mechanics were screaming, hugging, crying, even climbing fences and piling into the pit wall as if they’d just won a championship. The garage had exploded into pure, unfiltered emotion, the kind that comes from years of struggle finally breaking into light. This wasn’t just a podium; it was a resurrection. For a team that had spent years clawing its way back from the bottom, Carlos’ finish wasn’t just another good result. It was proof they belonged at the front again.
In other news, just before the race weekend, a fan had gifted Carlos a hand-drawn unicorn mascot called Sparkles/Sprinkles (Sparkles had the majority vote as the name). The sticker adorned his helmet and gear throughout the weekend, a small but meaningful reminder of creativity and fandom in the high-pressure world of Formula 1.
As Carlos powered through qualifying and held his position during the intense 51-lap race, Sparkles quickly became an unofficial good-luck charm. Mechanics and team members joked about the unicorn’s “magic” as Carlos executed a flawless race to secure the podium. Williams confirmed that Sparkles would forever stay in garage 55.
Amid the roar of engines and the tension of Baku, the tiny unicorn symbolized joy, hope, and a little extra magic, a perfect companion for a historic weekend.
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