Williams F1 star Carlos Sainz has found himself at the centre of a conspiracy theory that he attempted to embarrass Lewis Hamilton at last weekend’s Qatar Grand Prix.

The seven-time champion has struggled since the start of the 2025 season, when he made the move to Ferrari, displacing Sainz by doing so.

The Spaniard secured a move to Williams where team principal James Vowles made no secret of sharing his hopes that the ex-Ferrari driver would front the resurrection of the once championship-winning F1 outfit.

But there were plenty of whispers that Sainz’s time in the spotlight would now be over, as many questioned the reality of his lofty goal of eventually making it onto a grand prix podium with his new team.

Oh how wrong those doubters were.

With just one round left in the 2025 championship, Sainz has now picked up two podiums with Williams, a stat which is impressive enough in itself considering the team haven’t been represented in the top three of a grand prix since 2021.

But what makes this accomplishment even more shocking is the fact that this year, Hamilton has been unable to pick up a single podium at Sainz’s former team, Ferrari.

After a nail-biting final few laps at the Qatar GP last weekend, Sainz crossed the line in P3, but it was a moment in the media pen that followed that has got fans on social media whipping up all sorts of conspiracy theories.

Sainz accused of boasting Williams podiums to Hamilton

Sainz was understandably excited in the post-race interviews following his Qatar podium, but in a video that has circulated from the media pen on social media, he appeared to converse briefly with Hamilton before showing him two fingers- which some have suggested were intended to represent the two podiums he has acquired since leaving Ferrari.

Some fans felt Hamilton was merely congratulating Sainz as others pointed out how the video had been grossly misinterpreted as screenshots spread of Sainz holding up two fingers.

One user commented: “The media taking screenshots of this video with carlos holding up two fingers to rage bait people was so gross, by the way.”

Sky F1 reporter Rachel Brookes then weighed in on the online debate, using the fact that she was present in the pen to help clarify the situation.

Speaking on Sky Sports, Brookes said: “There was a lovely moment in the pen because Lewis was waiting to come to do an interview with us because Carlos was talking and talking and talking, he does talk quite a lot.

“Lewis just came up and said ‘come on man you’re always talking, you talk too much’, and the two of them had some lovely banter between them.

“I think a photo from them went out where Carlos is holding up two fingers and people have said it’s Carlos going, ‘look I’ve got two podiums ha, ha, ha,’ I don’t think it was, they were chatting about all sorts of stuff.

“But it was a lovely moment between them because you could easily be Lewis thinking, ‘God I took his seat and he’s absolutely flying’, and he is on a complete high now.”