How Carlos Sainz 'Nailed' The F1 Qatar Grand Prix To Give Williams a Podium Finish

Carlos Sainz and Williams clinched their second podium finish of the 2025 season in Qatar, securing fifth place in the Constructors' Championship in the process.

The Spaniard extracted the most out of the Williams package after jumping ahead of Mercedes driver Kimi Anontelli during the first round of pitstops under the safety car.

Sainz and Williams have made more history after their maiden podium together in Baku, with the Spaniard becoming the first Williams representative to claim two podiums in a single season in a decade.

Carlos Sainz: Williams 'nailed' the strategy

The safety car brought a new dimension to the race due to the mandatory pit stop, but it allowed Sainz to jump past Antonelli and cruise to a podium after McLaren's blunder, where championship leader Lando Norris had to chase Sainz and Antonelli at the end, though he couldn't capitalize.

The 31-year-old heaped praise on Williams for the podium result, stating: “I’m so happy, so proud of the whole team for what we’ve done today.

"We came into this weekend thinking it was going to be the most difficult weekend of the year, and suddenly we came out of it with a podium.

“We nailed the race pace – I was super quick, much quicker than expected. We nailed the strategy, we nailed the tyre management, nailed the start, nailed all the defending and that brought us an unexpected podium so I could not be prouder.”

Sainz's achievements arrived on the weekend of the four-year anniversary of the passing of team owner Frank Williams.

Carlos Sainz reveals he fended off Lando Norris with a damaged car

Carlos Sainz, Williams — Williams Racing / Getty Images

For the final 10 laps of the race, Sainz revealed that he managed to fend off the fast McLaren of Norris despite struggling to handle his FW47 around the fast-paced Lusali roads.

“10 laps to go I decided to push flat-out because we were saving the tyres to keep Antonelli at bay,” he explained.

“Once they told me Lando was going to pass Antonelli, I was like ‘we need to open the gap to Lando as much as possible’ to see if they get into a fight. Five laps to go, something broke in my car, in the front-end.

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“I don’t know if a piece of front wing fell off or something on the tyre. I lost massive front-end in the high-speed and medium-speed. Turning right, actually on the straights, the steering wheel was like this and turning right it wouldn’t turn.

“Turning left would be fine. Lando caught up on me in the last two laps quite a bit, losing 0.5s of race pace. To be honest, today was controlled but at the same time pushing because I was around cars that were much quicker than me today.”

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