British Grand Prix – Williams’ Deputy Team Principal Claire says that Robert Kubica’s technical ability was key for his 2019 signing.
Speaking at the Friday Team Personnel press conference, Claire Williams was asked to clarify the rumours surrounding Robert Kubica’s position with the team.
She quickly set about ensuring everyone was in no doubt that Robert’s position within the team is secure, despite usually trailing teammate George Russell by some margin: “Robert is racing with us this year and will continue to do so. I don’t know where this speculation has come from but in the past couple of weeks there seems to be a lot of speculation around about Williams.”
Kubica’s sponsor refutes speculation regarding his seat.
Claire went on to explain the reasoning behind the Polish driver’s signing, praising his strong qualities as a driver: “Talking to him last year he did a great job for us as a reserve driver, and throughout last year we really saw his strength and his technical ability and his feedback. If you spend any time talking to Robert you know and understand how intelligent he is, how much knowledge he has around the car and its performance and how to get the most out of it. Obviously coming into this year, we knew where we were ahead of time and we knew therefore that we would need somebody, a driver, with that level of engineering intelligence that could really help translate what was going on in the car back to the engineers and back into the factory and that was a key reason why we brought him on board. And he has continued that process with the engineers.”
“He has been invaluable in helping to drive the performance that you are seeing we’re bringing to the car over the course of this season.”
Continuing, Williams said: “Robert, as a person, he’s incredibly hard working and he’s very focused on what he’s here to do and we all know where he has come from and the accident that he has had and for anyone to come back into our sport having experienced such an accident is quite remarkable. It shows his resilience. The only other person I’ve seen that in myself, in my lifetime, is Frank. To come back from such serious injuries, to have that level of determination is really quite extraordinary and I think that probably sums Robert up in a nutshell.”
Williams celebrating 50 years of Sir Frank at Silverstone.
