Carlos Sainz declared his maiden podium for Williams better than his first in F1 after finishing a jubilant third in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
From a stunning second in qualifying at the Baku Street Circuit, as he kept his head whilst chaos ensued all around him, Sainz drove faultlessly to claim his first podium since his final race with Ferrari in Abu Dhabi at the end of last season.
It brought to an end a disappointing campaign with Williams. The Spanish driver had scored just 16 points in 16 races before collecting 15 for this performance.
For Williams, it was the team's first podium from a full grand prix - George Russell was second in the rain-destroyed Belgian GP in 2021 - since Lance Stroll was third in Azerbaijan eight years ago.
"Honestly, I cannot describe how happy I am, how good this feels," said Sainz. "It tastes even better than my first podium that I did [third with McLaren in Brazil in 2019].
"We've been fighting hard all year, and finally proved today that when we have the speed - we've had it all year - and everything comes together, we can do some amazing things together.
"Today we nailed the race, not one mistake, and we managed to beat a lot of cars that yesterday I wasn't expecting to beat."
Sainz declared himself "extremely proud of everyone at Williams for pushing throughout a very difficult year".
He added: "We've proven to everyone the massive step we've taken compared to last year. We are on the rise, in the right direction.
"Unfortunately, with me, we've had a lot of bad luck, a lot of incidents, and it's been very difficult to turn all that pace into results, but now I understand why it all happened because the first podium needed to come like this.
"It's just life. Life sometimes brings you those bad moments to bring you a very nice one, and this tastes much better than anything I was expecting.
"It's a life lesson, to keep believing, trusting yourself, your team around you, your procedures, because sooner or later, it always pays off."
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