Carlos Sainz's first podium with Williams in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix was vindication of his decision to join the team for the 2025 Formula 1 season.
But even he was taken aback by the level of satisfaction the result delivered him after his wild celebrations in parc ferme.
"I cannot describe how happy I am, how good this feels," he said. "This is even better than my first ever podium that I did."
What made it especially sweet was that the journey to get there had not been straightforward, as things have repeatedly not been clicking for Sainz this season.
Bad luck, poor reliability, mistakes from team and driver, plus getting involved in other peoples' incidents, had all culminated to leave him with just 16 points to his name from the first 16 races. This was well behind team-mate Alex Albon's tally of 70.
In such a scenario, where it seemed Sainz just could not get a break to unlock a clean weekend, it would have been all too easy to let frustration creep into the system and have that then open up a whole new world of pain.
For Williams team principal James Vowles, the situation was not at a crisis point, but he felt ahead of the Baku weekend that perhaps things needed a bit of a lift. So the pair agreed to go for a dinner in Baku on Thursday night to lay everything on the table in a bid to get things back on track. And it seemed to work.
Vowles told The Race: "He and I have a really good relationship where we talk really candidly and openly about what's going on, what's going wrong, and what's going right? And how do we capitalise on it together?
"And the real key is this. His performance has always been there. If you didn't have performance, this becomes really tough, and it's really hard to put one thing on, 'This has happened', because so many things have across the season.
"We had dinner here on Thursday, which was basically a reset point of: 'What do we do going forward? How can I help? And how do we do this?'
"Carlos was in a great place at that point. And I'm not surprised he came into this weekend swinging, because that was the mood that he had from the outset."
As Vowles mentioned, the one consolation that both he and Sainz shared over the early-season annoyances was that the lack of results was not down to a lack of speed.
So they both knew that when the right moment came the turnaround would be instant.
As Sainz said: "I didn't have results to prove to myself, the team, and everyone that some good things were about to come. But, in the end, they did.
"Life has taught me many times that this sometimes happens: that you have a run of misfortune or bad performances, but then suddenly life gives you back if you keep working hard with something really sweet like this."
The 'lucky bastard' message
Straight after Sainz took that podium finish, beating Kimi Antonelli to third, Mercedes boss Toto Wolff dispatched a celebratory gift of champagne and chocolates to Vowles.
On the bag he cheekily wrote "lucky bastard" - a tongue-in-cheek reference to how Sainz had been in the right place at the right time in the chaotic qualifying session that ended with him on the front row.
Vamos, @WilliamsRacing 💪 Congrats on the smooth operation today. Enjoy the goodies 🙌🍫🍾 pic.twitter.com/cDlo1m7n7k
— Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team (@MercedesAMGF1) September 21, 2025
But digging into the data of the weekend - and especially the way that Sainz ran to third on pace merit - there was not much luck involved in what Williams was able to deliver.
The Baku circuit's characteristics, with its long straights, short corners and straightline braking, are a perfect stomping ground for the Williams car, so it was always going to be one of its better weekends.
Furthermore, its brilliant execution on Saturday was helped by extra work it had done in practice to understand how to get the tyres into the right window in qualifying - both in terms of preparation laps and the best track position.
Well aware of its weaknesses, Williams conducted a bunch of experiments with Alex Albon in Friday practice at Monza, and ran further test programmes in Baku throughout Friday.
These efforts included both work on getting the tyres into the right operating window, and some disaster planning of getting things back to the right temperature if things went wrong with preparation.
So on a qualifying day when an unexpected temperature drop and drizzle pushed the soft and medium compounds into uncertain territory, and where warm-up was a problem, Williams was actually ahead of the curve - and unleashed genuine pace.
In fact, Sainz could have pipped Max Verstappen for pole position had he not had a wild slide on the exit of the Turn 6 right-hander on his second Q3 run.
For Vowles, it was not a case of being a "lucky bastard".
"What I'm proud of is I want to earn our positions and our podiums, and today we had car pace to make it work," he said on Sunday.
"Mercedes was faster, but we were able to keep at least Antonelli behind. And this wasn't safety car luck or weather luck. We earned this across the weekend, and that means everything to me."
Even Wolff admitted that his message was a joke - as he said he has been impressed by what Vowles has done at Williams.
"It was tongue in cheek because as team principals we get lots of the criticism, but also the glory when others are doing a great job," he said.
"I am 100% convinced that James is a great contributor to the team success and to the long-term thinking. And everybody delivered today: the driver delivered, the pitstops were good overall.
"It's a trajectory that I enjoy seeing with him and for the team."
A momentum-generator
Vowles said the podium would not only be a huge positive for Sainz, in restoring his belief, but would also give the entire Williams team encouragement.
That result moved Williams into triple figures in the constructors' championship - it now has 101 points - and extended its buffer in the fight for fifth in the constructors' championship to 29 points, with Racing Bulls now its nearest rival.
"For Carlos, I think this means everything," said Vowles. "It gives him really good grounding that he can build from, and I think it ratifies this decision he made 12 months ago to come join us.
"For us as a team, you get positive momentum that builds from these sort of events. So it means everything to me, that this team has fought its way back and on a good journey."
He added: "I can't wait for the moment that we take this trophy back to the 1000 people in Grove that worked tirelessly day and night for this team, because I think the noise will absolutely lift the roof. That's what it does. It generates momentum."
