George Russell and Robert Kubica suffered yet another tough weekend at the 2019 Belgian Grand Prix, which saw ROKIT Williams Racing’s drought continue on what’s been a tough season.
After a calamitous qualifying which saw Kubica’s Mercedes engine explode on the entry to the Bus Stop, and Russell the last of the timed runners, Williams once again was at the tail end of the field with Russell failing down the order despite starting fourteenth on the grid with the Brit finishing fifteenth and a lap down.
But Russell’s mind was elsewhere, after the passing of former ART Grand Prix teammate Anthoine Hubert on Saturday evening after the accident in the Formula 2 race.
“It’s been a difficult day for everyone with the devastating news. Anthoine was a really great guy and I hope we did him proud, racing in his honour.” said Russell.
“I didn’t make a good start, I was forced to the outside and then I saw Raikkonen going through the air with a lot of debris. I committed to the escape road, then when I came back on Verstappen was going slow, so I lost a lot of positions.
“Our pace was ok, although I don’t know the end gaps to the guys ahead of us. Overall, it was quite a lonely race. This was always going to be the toughest race of the year for us. Next weekend we must reset, fight and see what we can do.”
Kubica on the other hand struggled with starting from the pitlane and could not make any ground up in a fruitless race which saw him finish seventeenth and last of the cars to cross the line.
“We had to start from the pitlane and had to compromise the car slightly due to
Williams heads into Monza, twelve months on from Sergey Sirotkin’s scoring a single point for Williams after Romain Grosjean was disqualified through a technical infringement.
