Williams hoping for 'more representative' outing in Bahrain

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Williams F1 is hoping that the Bahrain Grand Prix will give a more accurate picture of how everyone stands in 2018.

The team had a dispiriting time in the season opener in Melbourne. Sergey Sirotkin retired from his début race after a plastic bag caused a brake failure to his FW41 just four laps in.

Lance Stroll went the distance, but could only manage to cross the line in 14th place in the Australian Grand Prix

But chief technical officer Paddy Lowe said that the Albert Park circuit wasn't a typical track, and that it didn't necessarily signal a difficult season ahead for Williams.

He felt that this weekend's race in Bahrain would be a better indicator.

"It is the first normal race track of the 2018 season with more predictable weather," Lowe commented. "We should get a more representative comparison of the underlying performance of each team.

"It will be interesting to see how the 2018 tyres perform in Bahrain," he added. "And if they throw up more variety in race strategies.

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"After Sergey’s unfortunate DNF in Australia from a freak plastic bag, we hope to get him to complete his first race distance."

Sirotkin is also hoping to get a bit more time in the car this weekend.

"It was a very tough weekend in Melbourne," the Russian rookie admitted. "I really feel like I need another shot to bring us back to where we think we deserve to be.

"I can’t wait for the weekend to begin," he continued. "To start everything from zero, and to try and get some confidence back in all of us.

"I know the track quite well and I think it suits some strong points of our car. I’m looking forward to it and let’s see what we can do."

For Stroll, it's his second race outing in a Formula 1 car at the Bahrain International Circuit. The Canadian teenager is looking forward to putting some past experience into practice.

"I enjoy the track, and it has a good rhythm to it," he said. "The conditions during the weekend are always tricky because practice is during the day and then qualifying and the race are at night.

"There is a lot of adapting going on throughout the weekend.

"However I think it is going to be a good one, and am looking forward to getting back there."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.