Lowe admits "shame" Williams can't keep Sirotkin

Williams have replaced Sergey Sirotkin for the 2019 season, and team principal Paddy Lowe has admitted "it's a shame you can't have more than two drivers" with the Russian's exit from the British team.

Sirotkin only managed to record one point in 2018, with Williams producing a very poor car for the season, a season where they finished rock-bottom with just eight points in total.

Williams will be racing with a brand new line-up in 2019, with Robert Kubica and George Russell joining forces to replace Sirotkin and Lance Stroll.

Lowe is sorry that the rules don't allow F1 teams to enter with more than the standard two drivers.

"We musn't forget, it's his (Sirotkin's) rookie year, he's been a great team player for a start," Lowe told RaceFans.net. "Very supportive of his colleagues both immediately and the team as a whole.

"He works incredibly hard as well. He's very committed to his own (development) whether it's training or whatever but also to the programme he needs to follow. It's a shame you can't have more than two drivers."

Lowe has described his team's new line-up as "fantastic" but this doesn't take away from the disappointment of losing Sirotkin for the '19 season.

"We've picked our driver line-up for next year, which I think is a fantastic line-up; the combination of George Russell, who won his championship - a fantastic result, we have the F2 champion coming into our team - and then the combination with Robert (Kubica), who is a legend as we all know so we're very excited about the line-up. Which doesn't take away from the fact it's a shame we're not keeping Sergey."