Confirmed: Williams F1 Team retains Lance Stroll for 2018, Sergey Sirotkin steps up to race with Williams in 2018, while Robert Kubica signed as a test driver!

It was confirmed on Thursday morning (16/1/18) that Williams F1 team will retain Lance Stroll for the 2018 Formula 1 season. While, Formula 2 driver and Renault test-driver Sergey Sirotkin will make his Formula 1 debut with the team this season, while former BMW Sauber driver Robert Kubica signed as a test driver confirming the teams 2018 line-up and completing all the drives for the 2018 F1 season.





Robert Kubica was the early favourite to get the seat vacated by the recently retired Felipe Massa, but dropped out of the running following Siroktin's impressive showing at the end of season Pirelli test at Abu Dhabi.



He signed a multi-year deal with the team, Sirotkin will bring in sponsorship from Russian back company SMP Racing with a budget up to £15 million to the team for 2018.

Overall, not a surprise with the news, it has been rumoured for a month that Sergey Sirotkin has sign for the team, the romantic side of me wanted Robert Kubica have a fairy-tale return to Formula 1, as I said before in a previous post that his injures from 2011 from the rally crash possibly cost him the drive and in my opinion he is the fastest driver if the injures never happen.

The advantage went to Sergey Sirotkin who was as fast as Kubica in the Abu Dhabi test, the main reason (I don't think the team wanted to tell) he got the drive is the money that the team will be getting from Sirotkin sponsors as the Williams team do needed more as they are not the most funded team on the grid compared to the likes of Red Bull and McLaren.

Anyway, good luck for both Lance Stroll and Sergey Sirotkin next season at Williams.