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The Bahrain Grand Prix was another sorry affair for Williams and Robert Kubica, as the Pole affirmed that he was hampered by strong tyre degradation during the race.
Williams has had a tough start to the 2019 season, and are the grid's clear backmarkers. In the opening race in Melbourne, Kubica ended up 3 laps down, and was 2 laps down when the chequered flag fell in Sakhir.
Kubica said that he struggled to stay in touch with teammate George Russell, but was held back by tyre issues that were "impossible" to turn around.
“I think we could [have gone] longer but I started degrading quite a lot also in the first stint in order to stay in touch with George.
“When you are starting on harder tyres you have worse warm-up so you slide more. By sliding more you create more temperature, by creating more temperature you have less grip, so you slide even more and it is a snowball.
“You [could] do whatever you want: you could put rear tyres on the front, it would be dominated by the effect we are having. I can only try to help it with the tools but it’s so big that it’s impossible to turn it around.”
Kubica took his one and only pole position in Bahrain 11 years ago, but had a different experience this time around, saying the race was just about getting the car to the end damage-free.
"It looked like in the beginning of the race I could somehow hide [it]. Opening laps are more about improvisation, especially when you are far behind, it’s survival.
"Probably I just got better feeling with the wind and stuff like this but once everything was settled everybody took their own pace and I knew I didn’t have it.
“So it was kind of survival and trying to bring it home. I was so slow in some corners to try to protect the rear tyres but I was still sliding and still overheating them so I just really struggled with the grip.
"Everybody was struggling, definitely, with these windy conditions. But when you have no stability in steady conditions if you add the wind and used tyres then the game is over for you.”
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This is still painful. I know I've said it over and over again, but I cannot get over how Williams ended up there, way down below (x3). Nothing less than a Brownian purification will save this team at this rate.