Sergey Sirotkin says the final part of his British Grand Prix was “painful” and that he “drove with hope” due to running a harder compound tyre than his nearest rivals.
Williams endured a dismal weekend on home ground as upgrades to the FW41, primarily in the form of a new rear wing, led to aero stalls, causing both Sirotkin and Lance Stroll to spin off in qualifying.
Williams changed the rear wing specification, resulting in a pit lane start for both drivers, though neither was able to mount a challenge for points in the race.
Sirotkin was ahead of team-mate Stroll at the rear of the pack but fell behind at the second Safety Car restart, as he ran used Mediums compared to the fresh Softs employed by his rivals.
The Russian ultimately came across the line 10 seconds behind Stroll and commented: “Well honestly it was a very disappointing race.
“I mean as a driver when you want to be there and want to be fighting, to feel what I felt throughout the race is a very difficult feeling.
“[During the Safety Car period] I was the only car around me with a bit worn harder compound and it was very tough obviously to keep it alive through the Safety Car.
“I could see I was picking up lot of rubbish from the track, surprisingly, and even then I mentioned this straight away on the radio.
“I had a lot of vibration, absolutely no grip, even pretty visually could see the surface of the tyre was nowhere.
“Then on the [second] restart for the first two laps it was just about trying to keep the car on track and just drive and hope that after a certain amount of laps the situation will come back.
“It partly did come back but if you look around everyone else was with the fresh Soft tyre straight out of the box so I mean obviously the grip level was incomparable, not in my favour unfortunately.
“After that it was just… when you are a racing driver and you want to be there fighting for positions it’s just very painful what you feel for what I felt for the last stint.”
Sirotkin is the only driver on the grid yet to score a point this season, and has not managed to complete a single race lap inside the top 10.
