I'm not trying to rain on the parade of sentiment surrounding Robert, but...
I sincerely hope Robert can post a competitive lap time today. If I had to put money down now, on the basis of what he's done in the car, I'd say he's not going to get the seat.
The content of the Paddy Lowe interview is extremely interesting in what it omits.
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/lowe ... ng-984112/
- No concern over his ability to complete a race distance.
- Happy with the number of laps.
- Happy with the program in general.
- Good feedback, tremendous experience.
- Professional and confident.
- Admire his determination.
However,
absolutely nothing to say about his speed, or the competitiveness of his lap times. As a Kubica fan, that this is omitted feels very concerning.
There have been a variety of reasons, or excuses, why Kubica has yet to post a seriously quick lap time. My suspicion is, if he doesn't do it today, Williams will take Sirotkin (and his money).
Sirotkin has posted a time 1.3 seconds faster than Kubica managed yesterday, and in only 50 laps of running. Kubica's time was also 1.7 seconds slower than Stroll managed yesterday.
It seems almost unfair that he's come this far to potentially be denied at the last hurdle, but he needs to post a categorically quick lap to truly remove doubt of his abilities to race competitively.
