Williams head to Bahrain still facing a shortage of parts leaving Robert Kubica particularly disadvantaged, he has revealed.
The situation at the Grove-based outfit remains bleak as a major flaw with their 2019 car is expected to take quite some time to rectify and leave them stranded at the back of the grid as a result,
In the meantime, it gets worse as the Polish driver explained his race weekend in the desert is already compromised.
“It’s not an easy situation from the driver point of view because we will be limited with spare parts and everything,” he told RaceFans on Thursday.
“In Australia, in FP1, I got a damaged floor by going on top of one kerb and we didn’t have bits to replace it. It affected probably all weekend and it’s something where you have to have a safe approach.”
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Rather than have a new floor for Bahrain, Williams has only been able to repair the damage as best they can and that means Kubica will have to avoid the harsh kerbs at Sakhir.
“The team is trying to get us the best car we can have to drive,” Robert continued. “I think in a perfect world you would have fresher parts starting a weekend and having some spare parts in a good state.
“The thing is it’s already a very difficult car to drive – not difficult, but we are lacking the grip. If we are having parts that are not at 100 per cent we are then limiting ourselves as well.
“The situation is not perfect but still the guys and everybody is trying to do their best. We have to do the best with what we have.”
As for teammate George Russell, his first Formula 1 weekend was more positive in terms of his personal performance but last year’s F2 champion knows it is a case of waiting for Williams to catch up.
“There is certainly light at the end of the tunnel but that tunnel’s quite far away,” he was quoted by PlanetF1.
“We’ve just got to not do anything drastic because at the end of the day even if you’re one of the top three teams you can’t just overcome that lap time in a day, a week, a month or whatever.
“It’s a process. The team made it clear from the end of last year that this is a longer-term project for them and we’re not looking in the short term.”
