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.
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Sorry to be ignorant and not scroll back dozens of pages, but can somebody kindly fill me in on why didn't Kubica pursue a FE drive after his test drive last year? Was there any concern about the tight hairpin turns FE have?
Sorry to be ignorant and not scroll back dozens of pages, but can somebody kindly fill me in on why didn't Kubica pursue a FE drive after his test drive last year? Was there any concern about the tight hairpin turns FE have?
Not sure if a physical reason
But from kubica point of view it might be a bad step to do fe after getting so close to an F1 drive and he has all his focus on getting one
I was kind of thinking that something would be better than nothing right now but he obviously doesn't agree, having turned down various drives in sportscars, etc!
After his initial test for Renault, where he outpaced Sirotkin (same Sirotkin) so much and the car itself for that matter, that one of the engineers said "i don't understand why we were that quick", I guess he gave up on lesser stage options like DTM or FE. He lost this year with "modern F1", meaning he was not bringing enough cash. He recently stated clearly, that if he can't secure a race seat for next season, he will go somewhere else. Anyway, reserve driver position was simply highly paid consolation option from Williams for screwing him on the last straight with whole Sirotkin farce. Supposedly he had some options to jump into the car midseason under certain conditions, but once again it didn't exactly came acording to plan.
He stated that pretty clearly, he's not interested in wasting another year, so zas510 I guess he feels the same.
Williams would like to take their time, as they have the last seat in F1 to offer and want to sell it to the highest bidder, same as last year. Robert will not make the same mistake twice and let be played in Clair's game and eventually be left with nothing, with no time spare to react. There are no good paying options at the moment, Ocon is broke and plays PR stunts with "i'm intrested but I want to be payed 4m because i'm so talented", so he's out of contest for now, Sirotkin don't have any more than he had and Williams isn't even pretending he's any good anymore. Markelov would be probably only real option for some fat paycheck, but his father is in custody until december 1st and up until that date it's all uncertain. Robert said he won't wait until december, so Williams can either risk it, hoping that Markelov will bail out or someone else pops up and splash the cash or contract Robert earlier.
Sounds like he was saying there are two open/unannounced drives next year and he won't be driving for Toro Rosso. So implication is he will be driving for Williams, but he can't explicitly announce it because that's the team's prerogative per the contract. And possibly pending some Stroll driver/father removal negotiations.
What to take from this is simply that he has decided he's NOT going to drive for toro rosso.
he hopes he'll be on the grid in australia.
the only option for that to happen thus, not driving the toro rosso seat,
means that he's eyeing the Williams seat.
there's been word on having a ferrari role too (not race seat), so i'd be inclined to believe,
that him stating having made a decision, suggests he thus decided not going for that, but going for
a race seat. so scratch ferrari away too.
meaning, kubica in 2018 williams raceseat 90% certainty.
this makes me happy partially.
i'd love to be overjoyed for Kubica's return, but the Williams isn't really a sought after seat.
they're in a pretty bad shape.
then again, this year was real bad, and they opted for Sergey over him, thus i think it's good he didn't drive this year.
next year, they have a much better deal with Mercedes and Toto again thanks to signing what's his name,
who surely is heavily aided by mercedes 'knowledge' (think about setups etc.) so that would also help Williams as a team too,
and that immediately is a benefit for Kubica.
Paddy's influence will be more evident, he just stepped in this season so his influence can't be big,
the car was a letback but surely they'll take things into next year to make improvements here and there,
and paddy has been a mercedes prominent so the renewed bond with mercedes will on all areas be a benefit for Williams.
Kubica is smart and fast and i'm sure he's better than both Sirotkin and Stroll, and also to whatshisname (new driver for williams).
so things might be looking progressing positively next year for Williams.
there's 2 things left though;
1-big sponsors gone, including stroll. that'll get felt.
2-claire williams still's at the helm.
i hope sincerely paddy will do a great job and find himself in a short few years time (2 max) to take over Claire's role.
"Explain the ending to F1 in football terms"
"Hamilton was beating Verstappen 7-0, then the ref decided F%$& rules, next goal wins
while also sending off 4 Hamilton players to make it more interesting"
What is the possibility of Claire leaving or being forced out? Isn't the Williams family majority stockholders in the company? Highly unlikely then unless she steps back and hires someone controlling nearly everything and calls herself CEO or Principal.
What is the possibility of Claire leaving or being forced out? Isn't the Williams family majority stockholders in the company? Highly unlikely then unless she steps back and hires someone controlling nearly everything and calls herself CEO or Principal.
I watched a vid of her lately and she says she did not want too be the boss, she wanted too stay as media, but she was steered into the role by others. I don't think its a matter of one group flexing its muscle and having 'their man' in charge.
Stroll isbad at qualification but much better in the race itself sirgi is the opposite
Both don't make errors every race like pastor Maldonado
Both brought money to the team so you can't blame her choice looking back it's just the car that's awful this year which is only her fault to a certain point she has spent plenty on recruitment of talented staff
