An elated Carlos Sainz cites Baku podium as the best of his career.

Though - other than Oscar Piastri's mishap(s) - the Azerbaijan Grand Prix wasn't the thrill-fest we had hoped for, it did have its moments, not least the fairy-tale results for Carlos Sainz and Liam Lawson.

It was Saturday's antics that brought about the sort of grid Stefano Domenicali has long been pushing for, the result of natural, unforeseen circumstances rather than gimmicks and manipulatory regulation changes.

While media attention focussed mainly on McLaren's misery, the real story was to be found in the performances of Sainz, Lawson, Kimi and Yuki, all of whom were given the opportunity to shine... and took it.

For the Spaniard, in particular, it was redemption, the one bright spot in a season which so far has left us all wondering what might have been had Ferrari not chosen to drop him in favour of a seven-time world champion.

Admittedly, his place on the front row alongside his former teammate, owed a lot to Lady Luck, but unlike some he didn't squander the opportunity given him.

"Honestly, I cannot describe how happy I am, how good this feels." he said at race end. "This is even better than my first ever podium that I did.

"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.

"Yeah, today we nailed the race," he grinned. "Not one mistake, and we managed to beat a lot of cars that yesterday I wasn't expecting to beat.

"I'm extremely proud of everyone at Williams for pushing through our very difficult year," he continued. "I think we've proven to everyone the massive step that we took compared to last year.

"We are on the rise," he insisted, "we are in the right direction.

"Unfortunately, with me, we've had a lot of bad luck, a lot of incidents, very difficult to convert 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, you know?

"Life just sometimes brings you those bad moments to give you a very nice one, and this stays much better than any other thing that I was expecting. So, just a life lesson, to keep believing, keep trusting yourself, your team around you, your procedures, everything that you're doing, because sooner or later, it always pays off."

However, with the Grove outfit - like the majority of its rivals - now fully focussed on 2026, the Spaniard admits that Baku is probably going to be as good as it gets for him this season.

"I think the podium is, unless something crazy happens, maybe our best chance," he admitted. "Probably Vegas will be our next best track to try and maybe put together a top five or a top six, which is what we sometimes can achieve when everything goes right. It's a tough ask.

"I'll fight for it if it comes, like you've seen today," he added. "But the rest, for example in Qatar, I don't think we will score points.

"That's how much our performance swings. But then we will have the Austins, the Mexicos. We will be a pure midfield car where we can maybe get in the points and keep our championship going. So excited to see what happens in those races."

Check out our Sunday gallery from Baku here.