Sergey Sirotkin admits the disappointment of losing his Williams seat to Robert Kubica wasn't helped by the seeming certainty he would be retained for 2019.
In the final weeks of this past season, speculation increased that the Pole was on course to be promoted into a race seat for next year and just before the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, that was confirmed.
It was a bitter blow for the Russian who had finally got his big Formula 1 chance but ended up at the back of the grid as the Grove-based team endured a miserable 2018.
“I was strongly hoping for [a second season] and it looked like it was the case," he told Motorsport.com.
“It looked quite obvious it would be the case for quite a while but it’s F1, it’s a difficult world. To get success there are also many, many different parameters which unfortunately most of the time aren’t up to the performance of the driver or whatever.”
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The 'parameter' in this case was funding as Sirotkin's backers SMP Racing withdrew their support from Williams because of their poor performance while Kubica brought in new funds from Polish oil firm PKN Orlen.
“We had a few meetings, I could understand that discussions are not going the way we want them to be," Sirotkin said.
“Obviously SMP Racing wanted to be professional and didn’t want to accept those things, it was a strong sign for me that’s it not going to happen.
“But I always hoped that probably something would change, a moment or whatever. It didn’t happen.”
