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The Williams F1 Team has finally confirmed that Robert Kubica will make his full time race comeback next year, 9 years after his previously final race in Formula One. The Polish ace has been the team's reserve and test driver during 2018, and will race alongside rookie George Russell.
Because he was the only one to use 2018 hypersofts to barely beat Sirotkins soft tyre time. When you compare their times on the same tyres Sirotkin is clearly much faster.
Stroll also had a run on hypersofts and has been slower even though Kubica admittedly screwed up his hot lap. I guess it is not very surprising to anyone but still worth mentioning. That barely beat related to half a second. It was a tyre test not a constant qually mode, teams couldn't even change their test schedule and setups without Pirelli's approval. You can't really compare reliably lootking at the times alone. I already posted this one before, but i think it can be a good reminder of what has probably happened out there: https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/opin ... ns-answers
You know nothing about Valencia to say who was actually faster, only Renault knows and they have come out supporting Sirotkin to get the Williams seat so that’s pretty telling. Williams compared Sirotkin and Kubica and chose Sirotkin so he must have impressed them as much as he did Renault. Nothing more nothing less.netoperek wrote: ↑14 Jan 2018, 16:14Stroll also had a run on hypersofts and has been slower even though Kubica admittedly screwed up his hot lap. I guess it is not very surprising to anyone but still worth mentioning. That barely beat related to half a second. It was a tyre test not a constant qually mode, teams couldn't even change their test schedule and setups without Pirelli's approval. You can't really compare reliably lootking at the times alone. I already posted this one before, but i think it can be a good reminder of what has probably happened out there: https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/opin ... ns-answers
My point is - we can't really tell exactly how fast either of them is (apart from Stroll being most likely the slowest), but one thing seems worth noting - Sirotkin has not been outclassed as expected. Whether it was due to Sirotkins speed, Kubica's lack of, or clever test program planning to justify 2 paydrivers lineup, it raised some questions. Only Williams have a clear picture of it, but will keep that knowlegde close to themselves to use it as it suits them.
In my opinion SS used his chance properly and gave some solid arguments to give him more chances (preferably in Stroll's car), even though it could be "staged" to some extent and despite he has already been beaten by RK in Valencia (which has been a proper shoot out), was unable to kick Palmer out of his seat in Renault and the fact that only title he has won was european Formula Abarth trophy in 2011. I'm not totally against the guy as it seems he could be a decent driver in time, not only a cash supplier. Even if he was objectively faster than Kubica in this particular test (which i doubt) I don't want to see a Stroll - Sirotkin lineup as the latter lack proper experience and former seems like can't benefit from his, both can't really push the team forward development wise and lets face it, they're not exactly WDC material. Kubica has been regarded as one in his day and at least can tick off the other two boxes. There's not really any other alternative for #1 driver at the moment.
what more is there to take?Powerful Russian businessman Boris Rotenberg says he is pushing hard to secure Sergey Sirotkin's place on the 2018 grid.
Sirotkin's backers, including the SMP Bank owner and billionaire Rotenberg who is reportedly close to Vladimir Putin, are reportedly promising over EUR 15 million in sponsorship.
Rotenberg told Russian media he is working hard on the deal.
Renault and even SS confirmed that Robert has been 0.4s faster than him "out of the box".RedNEO wrote: ↑14 Jan 2018, 18:28You know nothing about Valencia to say who was actually faster, only Renault knows and they have come out supporting Sirotkin to get the Williams seat so that’s pretty telling. Williams compared Sirotkin and Kubica and chose Sirotkin so he must have impressed them as much as he did Renault. Nothing more nothing less.netoperek wrote: ↑14 Jan 2018, 16:14Stroll also had a run on hypersofts and has been slower even though Kubica admittedly screwed up his hot lap. I guess it is not very surprising to anyone but still worth mentioning. That barely beat related to half a second. It was a tyre test not a constant qually mode, teams couldn't even change their test schedule and setups without Pirelli's approval. You can't really compare reliably lootking at the times alone. I already posted this one before, but i think it can be a good reminder of what has probably happened out there: https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/opin ... ns-answers
My point is - we can't really tell exactly how fast either of them is (apart from Stroll being most likely the slowest), but one thing seems worth noting - Sirotkin has not been outclassed as expected. Whether it was due to Sirotkins speed, Kubica's lack of, or clever test program planning to justify 2 paydrivers lineup, it raised some questions. Only Williams have a clear picture of it, but will keep that knowlegde close to themselves to use it as it suits them.
In my opinion SS used his chance properly and gave some solid arguments to give him more chances (preferably in Stroll's car), even though it could be "staged" to some extent and despite he has already been beaten by RK in Valencia (which has been a proper shoot out), was unable to kick Palmer out of his seat in Renault and the fact that only title he has won was european Formula Abarth trophy in 2011. I'm not totally against the guy as it seems he could be a decent driver in time, not only a cash supplier. Even if he was objectively faster than Kubica in this particular test (which i doubt) I don't want to see a Stroll - Sirotkin lineup as the latter lack proper experience and former seems like can't benefit from his, both can't really push the team forward development wise and lets face it, they're not exactly WDC material. Kubica has been regarded as one in his day and at least can tick off the other two boxes. There's not really any other alternative for #1 driver at the moment.
You probably have already noticed I have a similar feeling about the situtation
. I do feel sort of sorry for guys like Sirotkin and Kvyat, however. They have it a bit easier with political and financial backing to get into the sport, but they are sportsmen after all - being branded paydriver can't be good for Your confidence. They end up naturally in teams interested in their financial support more than their talent and I guess they're being treated differently than guys who came up on talent alone. I imagine it must be hard to take off that label and in consequence can have impact on actual results. Who knows how many real talents could have been diminished by taking shortcuts No they didn’t but anyway the only thing that matters is the times we saw at Abu Dhabi since that’s all we have access to. Renault went out of there way to say Sirotkin deserves the seat so I think they know better than us and nobody can say anybody threw Russian money at them to make those comments. Why is it so hard to believe Sirotkin was just faster than Kubica?netoperek wrote: ↑14 Jan 2018, 22:19Renault and even SS confirmed that Robert has been 0.4s faster than him "out of the box".RedNEO wrote: ↑14 Jan 2018, 18:28You know nothing about Valencia to say who was actually faster, only Renault knows and they have come out supporting Sirotkin to get the Williams seat so that’s pretty telling. Williams compared Sirotkin and Kubica and chose Sirotkin so he must have impressed them as much as he did Renault. Nothing more nothing less.netoperek wrote: ↑14 Jan 2018, 16:14
Stroll also had a run on hypersofts and has been slower even though Kubica admittedly screwed up his hot lap. I guess it is not very surprising to anyone but still worth mentioning. That barely beat related to half a second. It was a tyre test not a constant qually mode, teams couldn't even change their test schedule and setups without Pirelli's approval. You can't really compare reliably lootking at the times alone. I already posted this one before, but i think it can be a good reminder of what has probably happened out there: https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/opin ... ns-answers
My point is - we can't really tell exactly how fast either of them is (apart from Stroll being most likely the slowest), but one thing seems worth noting - Sirotkin has not been outclassed as expected. Whether it was due to Sirotkins speed, Kubica's lack of, or clever test program planning to justify 2 paydrivers lineup, it raised some questions. Only Williams have a clear picture of it, but will keep that knowlegde close to themselves to use it as it suits them.
In my opinion SS used his chance properly and gave some solid arguments to give him more chances (preferably in Stroll's car), even though it could be "staged" to some extent and despite he has already been beaten by RK in Valencia (which has been a proper shoot out), was unable to kick Palmer out of his seat in Renault and the fact that only title he has won was european Formula Abarth trophy in 2011. I'm not totally against the guy as it seems he could be a decent driver in time, not only a cash supplier. Even if he was objectively faster than Kubica in this particular test (which i doubt) I don't want to see a Stroll - Sirotkin lineup as the latter lack proper experience and former seems like can't benefit from his, both can't really push the team forward development wise and lets face it, they're not exactly WDC material. Kubica has been regarded as one in his day and at least can tick off the other two boxes. There's not really any other alternative for #1 driver at the moment.
