Robert Kubica volunteered to sacrifice his final testing opportunity of pre-season testing on Friday to allow Lance Stroll some additional time in the car, according to Williams Martini Racing’s deputy team principal Claire Williams.
Williams revealed it was Kubica’s own call to give Stroll the track time instead as the Canadian had lost significant amount of opportunities to test due to the weather conditions and technical problems on his FW41, and instead of Kubica and Sergey Sirotkin testing on the final day, it will be Sirotkin and Stroll.
The deputy team principal has praised the pole for his generosity, and the unselfish act was gratefully received by the team as they aim to get both drivers up to speed with the new car ahead of its race debut in the Australian Grand Prix at the end of the month.
“It was actually under Robert’s instigation,” Williams is quoted as saying by Motorsport.com. “I think over the course of the seven days that we had here, the race drivers through various different reasons, whether it be weather or directions that we’ve taken, haven’t had the track time that we wanted them to ahead of Australia.
“As everyone knows, Robert is an incredibly considerate racing driver and we’re very lucky in that and he knows that for the team’s benefit, the race drivers need the maximum amount of mileage. So it was his generous offer yesterday. It wasn’t the team.
“We haven’t asked him. It wasn’t Lance, Lance didn’t ask him. It was Robert, it was off his own bat, and clearly we were going to accept that we need that our race drivers to be in a best possible position that they can be going to Australia. And having them both in the car today will help us.”
