Williams has confirmed Robert Kubica will take the place of rookie driver Sergey Sirotkin, not the more experienced Lance Stroll, during his practice session appearances this year.

Kubica “will do three FP1s and he’ll take Sergey’s seat,” deputy team principal Claire Williams confirmed in Spain. Kubica’s first practice outing will be at the Spanish Grand Prix.

Williams predicted Sirotkin will “impress people this year”.

“It’s early days and we’ll have to wait and see. It’ll be a learning curve for him in his first season. But everything I’ve ascertained from him so far is he’s incredibly keen to prove his talent and that’s both in the car and outside.”

“He’s very engaged in the team, he’s working well with our engineers. He’s incredibly intelligent – everyone knows I think he’s got a degree in engineering. And that’s going to really help drive the team forward.”

“He’s working well with Lance, he’s working well with Robert, but I think we really have to wait and see when we get to Australia. Last year I don’t think people really had them on their radar, I think probably our driver announcement came as surprise to people. But if we didn’t have the faith in him that he could deliver we wouldn’t put him in our line-up. We’ll wait and see how he goes, but I think he’s promising.”

The team has the youngest driver line-up in the pit lane and Williams is counting on Kubica to help guide its two young racers.

“He has a really important role: Having two young drivers, having someone with Robert’s experience, being in his early thirties, is going to be critical for us. But we’re focused on this year with our two race drivers in Lance and Sergey.”

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2018 F1 season