I'm playing my part at Williams, insists Sirotkin

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Sergey Sirotkin has unquestionably undergone a baptism by fire in his maiden rookie outings in Formula 1 in 2018.

With the Williams FW41 not performing as well as hoped, Sirotkin finds himself one of only two drivers yet to score a championship point in the opening seven races of the season.

His best result so far was 14th place in the Spanish Grand Prix. That's left him open to criticism that he shouldn't have been given the seat in the first place, and that Williams made a mistake by not going with Robert Kubica instead.

But the Russian is determined to show that he has what it takes to succeed at the top level of motorsport.

“It’s been tricky,” the 22 told the official Formula 1 website this week. "We’re not scoring the results and the pace is not where we expected it to be.

"It would be easier to come in and get in a car which is easy to drive and ready for the points," he admitted.

“But I quite enjoy this challenge, working with all the guys and staying united to improve the situation.

"It’s a team effort. I feel like I’m playing my role there. Once we sort things out and get the results, we will feel like we have really worked for it.

Causes of Williams' issues are clear, solutions are not - Lowe

"But I don’t feel nice to say such things about myself," he admitted. "First I want to do a good job enough to make it visible. Then I want someone to tell me I’m doing a good job, not me trying to say I’m doing a good job."

Sirotkin insisted that he wasn't feeling any build-up of pressure from media criticism of his performance so far.

"I don’t feel any pressure," he said. "I know it’s there.

"Spending a year without racing last year reminded me how much I love it. I really missed it. It was like someone took a big part of your heart out. So just being back in a car is a big excitement.”

"There are times when you can’t fall asleep at night, especially now – I haven’t got any points. But we’re not in a position to worry that much about points.

“It’s not the push for points which wakes me up in the morning, it’s a passion for what I’m doing."

And he said that having Kubica waiting in the wings as the team's test and development didn't phase him.

"Many people may not expect me to say this, but I’m quite happy to have him in the team. It’s good to have a wide range of thoughts.

"He’s a very nice guy, very open, very friendly," Sirotkin added. "I have a very good relationship with him, despite what many people may think."

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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.