Kubica: F1 comparisons with Sirotkin “irrelevant”

Robert Kubica has warned against comparing his lap times against full-time Williams Formula 1 driver Sergey Sirotkin during pre-season testing. 

Kubica had been hoping to seal a remarkable return to F1 this season, seven years after suffering life-threatening injuries in a rally crash. Williams carried out extensive evaluations at last year’s post-season Abu Dhabi tyre test and ultimately opted to place Sirotkin alongside Lance Stroll in its driver line-up for 2018.

Having instead been offered a reserve and development based role with the Grove-based outfit, Kubica took over from Sirotkin to complete the afternoon session on Tuesday, posting a time 0.3s quicker than the Russian on the same soft tyres. His lap was also faster than Stroll’s best soft-compound-shod effort from the opening day. 

But when speaking to the media on Wednesday, the Pole insisted comparing times between the three drivers is ultimately “irrelevant”. 

“You cannot compare,” Kubica said. “I don’t care about my feeling, I have different job and I will never… the times are really irrelevant I would say, especially in my position.

“I’m here to help and try things. Actually driving in different conditions puts me in a difficult situation because I will not be racing. I have limited time in the car, so have to get confidence in the car very quickly, but conditions were difficult, so I have no time to take it easy.

“At the same time mileage is important, and the biggest thing is that I have no margin for any mistake. I know how limited we are because the team is pushing hard with development and the spare parts. 

“It’s a difficult compromise but I think yesterday for the short running in difficult conditions we have to be pleased and I think we highlighted a few things and the feedback was pretty clear. So I think we have really done a lot and nearly the maximum of what we were able to do with the conditions we had yesterday.”

In addition to his time in the FW41 cockpit during winter testing, Kubica is set to take part in three Friday practice outings with the team in Spain, Austria and Abu Dhabi - replacing Sirotkin for all three sessions. He also warned against reading too much into the lap times he manages during grands prix weekends. 

“Honestly I’ve not spoken to the team about them but the idea is to give me an opportunity to drive the car to see its development rate and how the car is moving forward. With developments [it’s about] how we can influence balance and what is changing.

“At the same time I will have more testing during the season with the limitations that we have but forget about looking at lap times as I won’t be driving for three months then jumping into the car and it will be like the first time in the car because the car is moving forward. 

“Even if you hear comments you still have to feel them for yourself to be able to judge. It is a difficult situation because honestly you have much more to lose than to win but my job is a bit different.

“I know everyone is looking at lap times and there were a lot of comments that I was lacking one-and-a-half seconds in Abu Dhabi which is strange. It doesn’t really matter. What is positive is that I jumped into the new car [yesterday] and in 20 laps I was actually able to drive it in a good way without any big preparations.”