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Kubica believes Williams' 2018 issues are more complicated than 2019

Published on 07 Apr 2019 14:23
3
By: Fergal Walsh

Robert Kubica says that the problems that Williams is facing in 2019 are less complicated than those it suffered from last season.

Williams has found itself as the grid's backmarkers for the second consecutive year, albeit further behind the rest of the pack this year.

Kubica acted as the Grove squad's test and development driver in 2018, before receiving a full-time drive alongside Mercedes junior George Russell.

The Pole says that the unpredictability of the FW41 from last year hasn't carried over to 2019, as Williams knows where it is lacking compared to its rivals.

“In some ways it’s easier problems to solve as you know the area and you know what’s lacking,” Kubica said. “Last year it was much more complicated, the limitation of the car were changing and was very inconsistent.

“But from the other hand it’s difficult to change something in a couple of months if you arrive with this, it’s difficult as we struggle to create, to put the grip into the car, the downforce, and there is always a reason but it’s true also that you need to unthink new ideas or something that could unlock a lot of improvements.

"We just need to make sure it will happen and as soon as possible. I think last year the issues were completely different and were difficult to predict.

"It was a bigger shock why we struggled so much but there were corners where we were not struggling and the car was quite competitive.”

"I was not expecting to struggle with other issues we faced from Barcelona. From the performance point of view I would say it’s the same as what we’ve seen in the windtunnel and everything. Then of course you never know what will happen with the other [teams].

“If the others keep the same performance as last year we will be more behind than last year from our numbers, data and simulation. This is more or less what happened.”

F1 News Robert Kubica Williams

Replies (3)

Sadtomato

Posts: 48
So in a nutshell he is saying they are up s*** creek !
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- Apr 7 2019 - 16:14
denis1304

Posts: 284
what were they doing last year? definitely not developing 2018 car and then come to testing without 2019 car.
you can see how McLaren made progress after abandoning 2018 car and focusing on this years car
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- Apr 7 2019 - 23:25
Pbr81

Posts: 2
I think it's not that obvious as it seems. They probably couldn't work on a 2019 car without fixing correlation of what they see in the simulator (and wind tunnel) and what is on the track. So the only good thing about that situation is that now they see it's a cr*p but they understand it a bit better. Now it's time to make a progress, although it might be a bit difficult without proper people. I'm not sure if they know what to do next. There is also another thing related to production of developed parts. As they know -> others did a good job to prepare to the new 2019 regulations, they didn't. So it's a question if they should develop FW42 as it is (and provide parts) or try to make something better but that would harm current driver results (specially RK using the prototype with more than 5kkm). Definitely they'll struggle a lot.
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- Apr 9 2019 - 12:58