F1 | Williams, Sirotkin discouraged by Sakhir's last place: "We looked like idiots..."

If in the statements released on the official Williams website had tried to draw more encouraging conclusions from the last place achieved in Bahrain, Sergey sirotkin, to Motorsport, did not use too many words to describe his state of mind: “I have a bad feeling after a difficult weekend” – the 22-year-old Russian made his debut. "I know we looked like idiots from the outside. This is pretty obvious: the fact that I tried to find something positive will probably come off as a little strange, but I see some positives. Partly with the learning I have done as a driver and partly as a team”.

At the very least, understanding of the car has improved: “Looking at the race results, we looked bad, probably even worse than in qualifying. It's better not to think about it. The positive aspect, at least, is that we are starting to understand more things".

Finally, Sirotkin admitted that the expectations around the FW41 were very different: “If you look at the car, we all agree that it looks well detailed and well designed. Since we are the ones who build the machine and know more things from the inside, It's a big surprise that we can't get the numbers we want".

Federico Martino