Emerson Fittipaldi thinks 214-race F1 driver ‘showed off’ at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix

Oscar Piastri beat Max Verstappen to win the 2025 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix and lead the championship, yet a driver not on the podium even impressed Emerson Fittipaldi.

Most of the headlines leaving Jeddah last week were about the fight for the victory between Piastri and Verstappen. The McLaren and Red Bull pair tussled for pole position and instantly over the lead of the Saudi Arabian GP, which drew a decisive time penalty for the Dutchman.

Four-time reigning champion Verstappen took a five-second penalty in the Saudi Arabian GP for leaving the track and gaining an advantage after he shortcutted the Turn 1-2 run off area to stay ahead of Piastri at the start. The penalty ultimately decided their fight for the victory.

Another talking point at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit was Lewis Hamilton’s ongoing problems adapting to Ferrari’s car. The seven-time F1 champion was slower in every session except Q1 than his teammate Charles Leclerc, who scored Ferrari’s first Grand Prix podium of the term.

Carlos Sainz impressed Emerson Fittipaldi as the Williams driver ‘showed off’ in the Saudi Arabian GP

Yet while Hamilton again struggled since joining Ferrari for the 2025 F1 season, the driver he replaced impressed Fittipaldi as Carlos Sainz ‘showed off’ with Williams at the Saudi Arabian GP. Sainz even out-qualified Hamilton in Jeddah after the pair earned P6 and P7 on the grid.

Sainz saw that Williams were the best of the rest behind F1’s top four teams in qualifying as the 30-year-old set a 1:28.164 Q3 lap to beat Hamilton by 0.037 seconds. He also helped his Grove crew be the best of the rest in the race after towing Alex Albon to finish in P8 and P9.

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The ‘courage’ that Sainz showed in qualifying in Jeddah especially impressed 1972 and 1974 F1 champion Fittipaldi. The Brazilian admired the Spaniard’s bravery to push the limits given the challenge of the fastest street circuit and second-fastest track overall on the F1 calendar.

Fittipaldi told AS: “Looking at the qualifying for the Saudi Arabian GP, ​​there were hundredths [or] thousandths of a second between one and the other. That never happened before.

“There are still differences between teams and cars, like Carlos Sainz, who showed off with Williams in Jeddah. He placed Williams in sixth place on a very difficult track. It’s a track where you have to have a lot of courage. In Spanish, they say ‘las grandes’.”

Carlos Sainz showed his intelligence to earn his best result for Williams yet in Saudi Arabia

As well as his courage in qualifying which impressed Fittipaldi last week, Sainz also displayed his intelligence during the Saudi Arabian GP to record his best result for Williams to date last Sunday. His P8 finish trumps the fortuitous P10 that Sainz secured in the Chinese Grand Prix.

Williams asked Sainz to keep Albon in his DRS range in the Saudi Arabian GP to help the 29-year-old fend off the threat of Racing Bulls rookie Isack Hadjar. Albon could not find Sainz’s speed in the race in Jeddah, but using DRS let him take the flag just 0.576s ahead of Hadjar.

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Sainz clearly had more speed than he showed whilst keeping Albon within one second after posting his fastest lap of the Saudi Arabian GP on the final lap of the race with a 1:32.466. It eclipsed Albon’s quickest lap of a 1:33.477, which the London-born Thai set on Lap 47 of 50.

It is unclear how much closer Sainz would have finished the Saudi Arabian GP to Hamilton in P7 than the 25.557s margin if Williams did not ask him to hold back. But P8 is his best result since joining Williams and his first points scored purely on merit since being axed by Ferrari.

Sainz scored his first point as a Williams driver with P10 in the 2025 Chinese Grand Prix. But the Madrid native, who has now entered 214 and started 211 Grands Prix, only inherited the top-10 finish in Shanghai due to Ferrari’s first-ever double disqualification in the Chinese GP.