Williams goes from bad to worse, and its drivers 'looked like idiots'

Sergey Sirotkin called Williams' performance in the Bahrain Grand Prix as he saw it, believing he and Lance Stroll likely "looked like idiots" for their poor performance.

The Grove-based outfit which had the ambition of holding its own this season among the mid-field contenders, kicked off its 2018 campaign with a poor showing in Melbourne.

Unfortunately, the team's state of affairs only got worse in Bahrain, with Stroll and Sirotkin finishing together, well down the order, fifteenth and sixteenth.

Despite the depressing result, Sirotking vowed to take away a few positives from the team's current plight.

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"A tough feeling after a tough weekend," said the Russian when all was said and done Sunday evening.

"I know we looked like idiots from the outside, this is quite obvious to me.

"And probably the fact that I tried to find some positive in it will sound a bit weird, but I do see some positives.

"Partly for me, partly for the job I did as a driver. Partly with the learning I did as a driver, and learning we did as a team. I see some positives," he added.

"Yes, we definitely looked bad in the results in the race, probably even worse than in qualifying. It is better not even to think about it.

"But the good point is that even if it went worse than it was, at least we kind of see more, start to understand the things more. Even if it goes worse we start to understand why is this and why is that."

Williams tech boss Paddy Lowe is at a loss to understand the reasons behind the FW41's depressed level of performance, but he's also determined to get to the bottom of the causes.

"It was not a great end to a very tough weekend for the team. We didn’t have the pace today to compete with any other cars except ourselves," said Lowe.

"We have clearly got to go away and look deeply into what has affected our pace, even relative to where we were in Melbourne just two weeks ago.

"There's nothing obvious – we've done all the obvious things. If we knew the answer we wouldn't be in this situation right now. We're just not looking quick.

"It's a time for the team to pull together, stay calm and go away and do the right amount of work in the right areas and see what we can do for China."

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