Kubica foresees careful tyre management
Renault had a fairly difficult Friday ahead of the Canadian Grand Prix. While Vitaly Petrov is still discovering the circuit as new to him, Robert Kubica is expecting this weekend will be all about managing tyres to prevent quick degradation.
Robert Kubica, R30-03:
Free Practice 1: P6, 1.18.662, 19 laps
Free Practice 2: P8, 1:17.529, 36 laps
"It was quite a difficult Friday. In the morning the track conditions were very poor, especially at the start of the session, so we had to wait quite a long time for the track to get better. In both sessions we tried to evaluate different downforce levels because we were not sure what would work best for us. Overall we are struggling with a lack of grip and it seems like everybody is suffering with the tyre wear on the long runs. So managing the tyres will be quite an important factor for the weekend."
Vitaly Petrov, R30-02:
Free Practice 1: P13, 1:19.549, 24 laps
Free Practice 2: P14, 1:18.582, 40 laps
"It was my first experience of Montreal today so I had to learn the track. It’s a challenging circuit because you need to attack and be aggressive, but also beware of the walls, which are very close to the track. We did some set-up work preparing for the race and evaluated the tyres, which have quite a big drop off in performance here during the long runs, and that could be a problem for the race. We still need to find the optimal set-up, but we have final practice tomorrow morning to work on things."
Alan Permane, Chief Race Engineer:
"Track conditions: The track began the day very dirty and slippery. It did improve, but not enough to make us happy and comfortable with the car. The cars are sliding about and that’s made even more difficult by the fact that we are running with low downforce."
"Performance of low downforce package: The new wing package is performing as expected. We did a downforce test and compared our Montreal package against our previous lowest downforce wings and overall we’re happy with our Montreal wings. I’m pretty sure we will run them for the rest of the weekend."
"Tyre performance: We ran both tyre compounds (medium and supersoft) this afternoon. It’s difficult to say which one is better in terms of lap time and we still need to look over the data to determine which one we will favour. We will continue monitoring this during final practice tomorrow morning as the track evolves further and more rubber is laid down."
"Weather predictions: At the moment we’re predicting a dry day tomorrow and rain on Sunday afternoon – probably after the race, but the forecast can change very quickly here so we will keep a close eye on the weather radar."
