Williams Martini Racing‘s 2018 driver line-up can deliver good results, despite their inexperience, according to 1992 world champion Nigel Mansell.
Mansell’s former team recently announced that 22 year-old Sergey Sirotkin will run his rookie campaign alongside 19 year-old Lance Stroll, the Canadian entering his second season in Formula 1.
Former race winner Robert Kubica will be pushing team and car development but Mansell says that having inexperienced race drivers is less of a hindrance than it used to be because Formula 1 cars are easier to drive now.
“In years gone by, without the computer aids, I’d be concerned by two young drivers in the team,” Mansell told Motorsport.com.
“That is not so much the case now with so many support engineers and so much information.
“A Formula 1 car, until it is handed over to the driver at a certain speed, drives itself now. So they will get a lot of support.
“I hope if the car is good and that there’ll be some races where they can shine. I hope they don’t fall down the grid.”
Mansell said Sirotkin and Stroll can learn a lot from working with Kubica as the team’s test and reserve driver.
“It depends how much experience a driver has got of winning and competing at a high level,” said Mansell.
“Competing at a high level is one thing, winning at a high level is another thing.
“I find it interesting having been teammates with world champions and working with all of them closely, you tend to learn an awful lot real quick.
“You have more insight. It always interests me to get someone else’s perspective.”
