Carlos Sainz beats Lewis Hamilton to first F1 podium with new team in 2025

Sainz lost his seat at Ferrari to Hamilton, but picked up his first podium for Williams in Azerbaijan

Carlos Sainz picked up his first podium for Williams in Baku (Getty Images)

Carlos Sainz beat Lewis Hamilton to an F1 podium finish in 2025 on a memorable day for Williams in Azerbaijan.

After a terrific qualifying performance, Sainz lined up second on the grid alongside pole-sitter and eventual race winner Max Verstappen in Baku.

While Mercedes cleverly opted to go long on their one-stop strategy for George Russell, resulting in the Brit finishing in second place, Sainz held off the challenge of Kimi Antonelli in the other Mercedes to finish third – Williams’ first podium in more than four years.

Hamilton is yet to finish in the top-three for Ferrari and finished eighth in Baku (Getty Images)

Having lost his seat at Ferrari this year to Hamilton – who is yet to pick up a top-three finish for the Scuderia and finished eighth on Sunday – Sainz was elated to pick up just Williams’ second podium since 2017.

“I cannot describe how happy I am, how good this feels. This is even better than my first ever podium that I did,” Sainz said.

“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.

Sainz, a four-time race winner with Ferrari, almost doubled his points tally for the entire season after a mixed start since his move from the Scuderia. The Spaniard said the podium underlines the progress of James Vowles’ team.

“We are on the rise; we are in the right direction,” he added.

“Unfortunately, with me, we’ve had a lot of bad luck, a lot of incidents — very difficult to convert all that pace into results.

Sainz finished third, behind race winner Max Verstappen and second-placed George Russell (Getty Images)

“But now I understand why it all happened, because the first podium needed to come like this.

“It’s just life, you know? Life just sometimes brings you those bad moments to give you a very nice one.”

Alex Albon, who is still 39 points ahead of teammate Sainz, finished 13th after a tough weekend in Baku.

F1 next heads to the Marina Bay Street Circuit under the lights for the Singapore Grand Prix (3-5 October).