Qualifying three places behind his former teammate, Carlos Sainz insists that his decision to join Williams has been fully vindicated.

While we are not expecting miracles from Williams this weekend, or the season ahead, it is clear that, much like McLaren, steady progress is being made, and the Grove outfit is finally in a position to regularly challenge for points.

Today, Sainz qualified tenth, three places behind his former Ferrari teammate Charles Leclerc, while his Williams colleague, Alex Albon starts sixth, ahead of both Maranello drivers.

Having lost his seat to Lewis Hamilton, Sainz was shunned by the likes of Mercedes and Red Bull, and eventually ended up at Grove with a team whose glory days are widely thought to be long gone.

However, the Spaniard, a winner here in 2024, insists performances like today's fully vindicate his decision to join the British team.

"I'm very happy, very proud of the whole team," he told reporters, "the way we've managed to progress through the winter and put together a car that is allowing us to be in Q3 for the first time in many years with both cars. I think it's great.

"And it can only get better," he continued, "because I have so much more potential to unlock as soon as I understand how to extract lap time in Q3.

"I was pretty strong in testing on the weekend, but clearly when it came to Q3, I didn't know where to find the lap time, and I did a few mistakes," he admitted, "and now I need to build that for me."

Asked if today vindicated his shock move to the team that last saw championship glory in 1997, he was in no doubt.

"Yeah, definitely," he said. "Might be how it's meant to be, and now it's a matter of working hard because I see a lot of potential in this team. A lot of potential to unleash from myself as well, with a team with full support and full machinery working into the right places and I feel like we're in the right path."

However, with an eye on the weather, the Spaniard admits he expects it to be tough on Sunday.

"It will be my first lap ever in a Williams in the wet, and it will be in a race," he said, "so it would be a steep learning curve.

"But not only to me, everyone who's changed teams, everyone who is a bit more new to the situation, you can see everyone's trailing a bit in qualifying, you know, because you're always one step behind.

"When you know a car very well, you can always be one step ahead and that's the difference between being one or two-tenths in front or one or two-tenths behind. I feel like this is just the beginning.

"I'm just going to get better at it, and I'm just going to keep improving. Massive learning curve for me and a margin of improvement."

Check out our Saturday gallery from Albert Park here.

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READERS COMMENTS

1. Posted by Editor, 26 minutes ago

"Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

Brilliant, so funny.

So much easier to take the piss as opposed to giving a heads up."

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2. Posted by Dirt, 33 minutes ago

""...shunned by the lies of Mercedes and Red Bull..."

Should that, perhaps, have read, "shunned by the *likes* of Mercedes and Red Bull?""

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Williams move vindicated, insists Sainz

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