Following the Italian Grand Prix at Monza, Williams’ George Russell remains the only driver in Formula 1 in 2019 without a world championship point to his name, but the young Briton isn’t allowing that to cloud his positivity going into the final seven races of a tough debut season.
Despite Williams posting the two slowest times in most official sessions so far this year – a trend that continued in last weekend’s Italian Grand Prix at Monza – Russell maintains that there are positives that can be taken from the weekend.
“We definitely have some positives to take away, it shows that we did a good job with the set-up, with the tyres, with everything else in our control” he told F1.com.
“I think we can be quite pleased with the result.”
“We definitely showed good pace, just a bit of a shame at the start, with our straight-line speed, we just got murdered on the straight.”
Monza has long been identified as the circuit that would most expose the weaknesses in this year’s Williams with its vast straights punishing any car with excess drag and/or aero deficiencies – the Williams FW42 in a nutshell.
So to leave Italy having finished ahead of an albeit lame Kimi Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean’s Haas, and having been narrowly beaten into 13th place by Sebastian Vettel’s Ferrari can be seen as a minor miracle given how far adrift Russell and Kubica found themselves at the start of the season.
Next up is the Singapore Grand Prix, a race around the streets of downtown Singapore that is likely to be slightly kinder to Williams.
Its short punchy straights and 90 degree corners might allow Russell and Kubica to once again interfere with the midfield if they can resist the pull of the Marina Bay circuit’s unforgiving walls.
Williams might still be a way off fighting for points, but their direction of travel is the right one, and they seem to be getting a handle on the aero issues that have blighted them for 18 months, which can only bode well for the future.
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