Vowles finally tastes the podium as team boss as Sainz delivers Williams a Baku bronze — Button calls it “the first of many”
Baku has a habit of flipping scripts. On Sunday it handed James Vowles his first podium as a team principal, and did it the Williams way: graft-first, belief-second, noise third. Carlos Sainz turned a front-row start into third at the flag, his first rostrum in blue — and for Vowles, the first bit of silverware since he swapped the sharp end of Mercedes strategy for the heavier lift of rebuilding Grove.
Sainz’s radio summed up the mood: best podium of his career, and not the last. It was more than a result. Twelve months after backing Williams over safer bets elsewhere, he got a payment on that faith. He talked about the swings of form and fortune, and how persistence tends to pay you back in this sport. On Sunday, it did.
For Vowles, the moment landed differently. The Briton’s résumé is packed — Brawn’s 2009 fairytale, Mercedes’ title machine — but this was the first podium with his name on the office door. He called it one he’d remember forever and pointed the credit where it belongs: across a workforce that’s been staring at the ceiling tiles of F1’s basement for too long, fighting just to survive, and now has something real to show for the climb. Sainz, he said, delivered an exceptional drive from lights to flag. He also gave Alex Albon a nod — the pace was there all weekend, but an early qualifying incident left him on the back foot and scrabbling just outside the points.
The symbolism matters. Williams has been building towards a weekend like this since Vowles took over: quieter upgrades, tidier execution, fewer unforced errors. Baku can be a trap or a launchpad. Williams chose the latter. Sainz’s execution was calm and clinical; the pit wall didn’t blink. It felt like a line in the sand for a team that’s been desperate to draw one.
And from the outer circle, the reaction was instant. Jenson Button — former Williams racer, current team ambassador, and a man who knows a thing or two about long rebuilds — dropped into Vowles’ comments with a prediction: first of many. Button’s rarely reckless with praise. He’s seen enough to spot momentum.
Sainz sees it too. He called himself “extremely proud” of a group that’s taken a “massive step” versus last year and admitted the rough patches earlier this season suddenly made sense. You could read it as sentiment. You could also read it as pressure release. Either way, it’s the sound of a driver who feels he bet on the right project.
The table agrees, for now. Williams tightened its grip on fifth in the Constructors’ Championship, opening a 29-point cushion over Racing Bulls. It’s not the kind of line that wins Christmas speeches, but it is the kind that unlocks budget, confidence, and better sleep. You need those to climb further.
There’s a temptation to get carried away after a day like this. Williams won’t. Vowles doesn’t operate on noise; he operates on patterns. The pattern here is encouraging: qualifying speed that travels into Sunday, a car drivers can lean on, and a garage that looks unhurried even when the stakes rise. If the team can bottle Baku’s composure and sprinkle it on the next run of circuits, then Button’s “first of many” won’t read like flattery.
No one’s pretending the hard bits are done. This is still a long road back to the front. But there’s a trophy on its way to Grove, and Vowles is already picturing the roof lifting when it arrives. For a team that’s had to manufacture its own optimism in recent years, the sound of spontaneous celebration will be a welcome change.
So yes, Baku flipped another script — and this time, it wrote Williams and James Vowles into the closing scene. The trick now is making sure it’s not a one-off cameo. The hints suggest it won’t be.
