Q+A with Robert Kubica at Hockenheim
BMW Sauber F1 Team driver Robert Kubica spoke to the media yesterday at the Hockenheimring. The Pole reflected on the British Grand Prix and of course talks about the upcoming weekend and the team's home race.
"Yeah, I didn’t finish the race in Silverstone unfortunately. Of course we can discuss if it was a 100 per cent mistake or not – I aquaplaned, but in the end it was difficult not to have any problems when you are spinning in the middle of the straight like that.
"The truth is that I didn’t finish the race and I scored zero points and of course it could be better or could be worse in Silverstone where the conditions were not easy. As I said, when aquaplaning you can do nothing."
Was it frustrating for you though, because obviously with BMW not being quite as quick as McLaren and Ferrari, it’s important for you to score points at every round from the championship point of view."It would be better to have scored some points but in the end this is racing. In nine races I haven’t done a single mistake in my driving, except one in Australian GP qualifying where I still qualified on the front row and at Silverstone when I was aquaplaning."
"But in nine races if you don’t finish one race then it’s still OK; I mean I didn’t finish in Australia but for different reasons. I think, all in all, the nine races have gone really well."
In this race are you aiming for a win or do you think that McLaren and Ferrari might still be a bit too far ahead?"I don’t know; it’s difficult to judge. I’m aiming for the maximum I can take from this race.
"Of course tomorrow after free practice we will have a better idea. But in qualifying at Silverstone we saw we were more competitive than we thought, so we will have to wait and see."
What did you test here last week?"Some new parts, not a lot of new things, but some improvements on the car. Not a lot of preparing for this race, so hopefully tomorrow will be dry and we can work a bit more on the set-up."
There’s a rumour you tried the KERS system for the first time – is that true?"Myself? No, I haven’t tried it."
Are you pleased with the development pace of your team in the last few weeks?"As I said, we have some improvements on the car for this grand prix – not very big, but some of them will improve the car a bit.
"But in the end you have to judge how quick we are improving against the others, so we have to wait and see what this grand prix and the Hungarian Grand Prix will bring us and where we will be."
Would you prefer rain or are you not worried?"I think in both conditions we can do well, so for me it’s the same."
Is this the kind of circuit that suits your car?"It’s a kind of normal circuit; it doesn’t really [have] special characteristics. Maybe the asphalt is a bit different from normal – it’s quite strange how the tyres are working here so we will have to see what the weather will bring.
"We’ll have to see whether we have hot or cold conditions, because this has a big influence on the performance and balance of the car.
"It’s quite important to have a good balance in the car, without too much understeer, because there are quite long corners here and corners [which open up], so it’s important also to have good traction and to be able to get on the power early out of low-speed corners."
Have you ever raced here before?"Yeah, quite a lot of times."
What are your impressions of the circuit?"My impressions? Well the track is good but with no special characteristics and I have been racing here since my first time in 2003."
Were you surprised by Lewis Hamilton’s performance in Silverstone?"Not really – in the end we knew that McLaren and Hamilton and Kovalainen are very strong.
"I think that in dry conditions Kovalainen was stronger than Hamilton at Silverstone; in qualifying Heikki did a very good lap time.
"In the rain Hamilton was impressively quick and what was even more impressive was how from outside it was looking pretty easy for him to drive so quickly, so he did a very good job.
In terms of Sunday do you have any concerns about the softer tyre?"We are not stressing the tyre and still we are using the hardest two compounds here so I would say I’m not expecting big problems with graining."
Is BMW planning to continue development of the F1.08 until the end of the season?"I don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t develop until the end. But in the end you have to ask someone else who is designing [the car]. I think the team is trying to do the maximum for this year’s car but also trying to design and work hard for next year."
Do you expect any new parts to come between now and over the break?"What I heard is that we will have a big package in Monza, but Monza is a low-downforce track anyway. Of course the team are trying to improve the car for every grand prix, but I don’t know if it will be a big upgrade or not."
At the beginning of the year did you expect to be this close in the championship?"Not really, two points off the lead after nine races, I was not expecting to be so close.
But after what has happened to more or less every driver and more or less every team in the first nine races, I think we are there not because of their mistakes, not because we are lucky, but we did a good job with the team and the whole package has worked very well."
