Kubica can Move Williams in Right Direction: Stroll

Williams’ senior driver Lance Stroll has said that Robert Kubica’s reserve and support role will be valuable to the team in 2018. The Grove team is fielding the youngest and least experienced driver line-up in its history. Senior driver, Stroll has only completed one ful season while Sergey Sirotkin will be making his debut this season.

The 19-year-old believes that Kubica’s experience will contribute to Williams’ development despite his absence from racing since 2011. Stroll said, “It’s great for us and great for the team. Robert has a tremendous amount of experience in Formula 1 and can really help us go in the right direction with correlation between the simulator and the car. Doing a couple of FP1s, I really believe it can help.

He continued, “The fact that he’s driven so many great F1 cars, he’s competed with some really good teams, he can give us some good knowledge, it will definitely help us because it’s going to be a very competitive year.”

Kubica’s Williams stint includes simulator work and three Friday free practice outings, which the Pole considers as important sessions. Kubica said, “In current regulations F1 testing is very limited. The simulator plays a very important role. Because I’m part of this kind of project it is important for me to build up a relationship in reality and simulator in order to use this tool as best as we can in the future.”

In preparation for his second season in Formula 1, Stroll plans to put the knowledge he earned last year to good use. He said, “Ahead of every new season there is a lot of anticipation and unanswered questions and this makes it even more exciting. With a season under my belt with the team, I can’t wait to get back on track and see what the new car is like. Until we are on track we will not know what the competition has been doing, but I am very excited and optimistic about the car the team has built. Last year was a steep learning curve for me and now I can’t wait to see what 2018 has in store.”