Carlos Sainz reveals “something broke” late on as Williams seal eight-year high

Carlos Sainz has revealed that “something broke” on his Williams F1 car before securing his second podium of the season.

Sainz produced a sensational race in Qatar to come away with third, resisting late pressure from Lando Norris.

The Spaniard jumped ahead of Kimi Antonelli through the first pit-stop phase under the Safety Car, where McLaren decided to keep Oscar Piastri and Norris out on track.

Once Norris made his second stop, he rejoined behind Sainz and Antonelli.

A mistake from Antonelli allowed Norris to jump ahead before chasing down Sainz in the closing couple of laps.

Sainz hinted over team radio that he had encountered an issue with his car.

Explaining his final 10 laps of the Qatar GP, Sainz described a dramatic shift in his car’s handling and how it felt behind the wheel.

“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.

“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.”

Williams secure P5

Sainz’s result means Williams have secured fifth in the F1 constructors’ championship with one round to go.

It’s Williams’ highest finish since 2017, when they last finished fifth in the championship.

Sainz is also the first driver since Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas in 2015 to score multiple podiums in the same season.

“I can only say that we did some good set up changes from the sprint to the main race that we thought the car felt better in qualifying but no one expected to suddenly switch on the pace the way we did as in the sprint we struggled a bit with fuel saving, damage on the car and a lot of front tyre graining. With those few setup changes we did today in the race, right from the first lap, I was really comfortable with the car,” Sainz added.

“I did a really good start, strategy and pit stop. Half way through that race I realised a podium might be on and we need to maximise this and go for it. That’s what we did. Like a few times this year, when the opportunity presented itself we grabbed it. It makes me very proud of everyone.”