Formula 1: Against all odds, Williams have scored a point in 2019
By Asher Fair
Against all of the odds, Williams have scored a point in the 2019 Formula 1 season despite the fact that they have effectively run a glorified Formula 2 car.
Just last week, we wrote about how the only way ROKiT Williams Racing were going to score any points in the 21-race 2019 Formula 1 season was if a meteor strike took out 10 cars in a given race.
Technically, that meteor strike would only have to take out nine non-Williams cars since that would guarantee a top 10 spot to one of the two drivers of the Grove-based team.
A meteor didn’t strike the Hockenheimring during this past Sunday’s German Grand Prix, but what did happen in this 64-lap race around the 16-turn, 2.842-mile (4.574-kilometer) road course in Am Motodrom, Hockenheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany was pretty close to having the same effect.
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Five drivers crashed during the race due to the wet conditions and two were forced to retire with mechanical issues. Unsurprisingly, Williams teammates Robert Kubica and rookie George Russell finished in 12th and 13th place, respectively, the lowest two positions among the drivers who finished the race.
But then two 30-second penalties were issued to two other drivers after the race concluded. Alfa Romeo Racing teammates Kimi Raikkonen and rookie Antonio Giovinazzi finished in seventh and eighth place, respectively, to score six and four points, but as a result of a breach of Article 27.1, which pertains to clutch torque application during race starts, they were stripped of these finishes.
They were officially scored in 12th and 13th place, respectively, which promoted Kubica to 10th and Russell in 11th.
Heading into this race, which was the 11th race on the 2019 schedule, the highest finish for Williams so far this season was Russell’s career-high 14th place finish in the most recent race, the British Grand Prix, at Silverstone Circuit.
Now they have officially scored a point thanks to Kubica’s 10th place finish in one of the craziest races that Formula 1 has ever witnessed.
The impossible actually happened.
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While George Russell has outperformed Robert Kubica soundly and on a regular basis throughout his rookie Formula 1 season, this is most definitely a great achievement for Kubica to score the team’s first and perhaps only point in what has been by far their worst ever season, and Russell’s career-high 11th place finish is nothing to scoff at, either.