Sirotkin Insists Williams have made Progress in F1

The Williams team have been an absolute shambles this F1 season, their performance just not being up to the mark. Their last world champion was Jacques Villeneuve back in1997 and even he feels there is no hope left for them.

Their debutant driver, Sergey Sirotkin, feels otherwise though. He was insistent that the team had made progress but it is not reflecting on the track. “It is very difficult. Honestly we have bits here, bits there, where we get the progress”, Sirotkin said.

“The only problem is that everybody does the same, so it doesn’t really change much, our standing compared to theirs. We do improve compared to ourselves and in certain areas we actually improve quite significantly.”

“But very often it overrides, let’s say, by other, bigger factors.”

Sirotkin’s teammate, Lance Stroll only made it out of Q1 once so far and the points too have been earned by him. The situation was even worse at the last race in Britain, with both cars having to start from the pit lane.

The Russian felt that such issues contribute to the feeling of lack of improvement. “For example, what we had then [at the British GP] or the most unlikely and most difficult track and weather conditions for us”, he stated.

“All of that covers and masks our improvement we have behind it, so it is difficult”, admitted Sirotkin.

Their chief technical officer for F1, Paddy Lowe was of the opinion that the races came thick and fast, which allows for very little down time to implement the planned changes.

“The trouble in F1 is the race come quickly. When you’ve got problems to solve, you can never fix them quickly enough”, said Lowe, formerly of Mercedes.

“We made a lot of changes already. There are great changes already in place and underway. It is about people, how they work and the processes they use. It is a wide-ranging subject.”