Kubica frustrated by Hulkenberg’s defence

Renault race review

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It was a frustrating race for Renault as Robert Kubica made little progress and Vitaly Petrov went off on the first lap.

The team are certain to finish fifth in the constructors’ championship whatever happens in Abu Dhabi.

Robert KubicaVitaly Petrov
Qualifying position710
Qualifying time comparison (Q3)1’16.552 (-1.104)1’17.656
Race position916
Laps70/7170/71
Pit stops12

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Robert Kubica

Was happy just to have avoided going off during the wet qualifying session:

It was a very difficult qualifying session. We made the right choices with the tyres in the final part of the session, but when I completed my quickest lap on the slicks, I was happy just to have made it round without any mistakes because I was struggling to keep the car on the track.

It was hard to get enough temperature into the tyres and our downforce level for the dry probably didn’t help in this respect – but it’s always easy to see what you could have done better after the session.
Robert Kubica

In the race he found himself strategically snookered. By lap 14 the team had to bring him in to make sure he didn’t fall behind Jenson Button and Felipe Massa, who had already pitted.

But Williams chose to bring Nico Hulkenberg in on the same lap and Kubica was doomed to spend the remaining 59 laps of the race behind the FW32:

It was a tough race this afternoon. I spent every lap in traffic but I didn’t have enough of a performance advantage over Hulkenberg to get past: I was losing a lot of time in the low-speed corners, and I couldn’t use our top speed advantage because I was stuck on the rev limiter for a long time on the main straight, so couldn’t attack him.
Robert Kubica

The Hulkenberg-Kubica train was briefly held up by Petrov for two laps:

The other critical part of the race came just after my pit stop, when Hulkenberg and I were running behind my team-mate for a number of laps and we couldn’t make the most of our fresh tyres, which cost me a position to Schumacher.
Robert Kubica

They were later held up further by Adrian Sutil, so that they were lapped shortly before the safety car period.

Kubica ended the race behind Hulkenberg in ninth.

Compare Robert Kubica’s form against his team mate in 2010

Vitaly Petrov

Made it through to Q3 but was the only driver who couldn’t improve his time after switching from intermediate to slick tyres.

He ran wide at the start and fell from tenth to 22nd on lap one. After picking his way past the Virgins and Lotuses he moved up to tenth as the other cars pitted.

Jenson Button passed him on lap 17, shortly before he pitted. Massa also passed the Renault driver at the end of the race, leaving him 16th.

Compare Vitaly Petrov’s form against his team mate in 2010

2010 Brazilian Grand Prix

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    Image © Bridgestone/Ercole Colombo

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    16 comments on “Kubica frustrated by Hulkenberg’s defence”

    1. Where did Petrov go off on the first lap? From what I saw, he was a bit slow off the line, got railroaded by Alguersuari through the Senna S and then pretty much had to wait for a gap in the traffic into Curva do Sol.

    2. Bit of a surprising error with the top gear ratio. You’d think they’d have that worked out this late in the season – Kubica’s been using an F-duct for a while now. Or was that some kind of wet set-up he was running?

      1. That’s not an error, they set the top gear so it gives them the best laptime.

        The teams and drivers really don’t take into account that they might run into someone that they need to overtake.

        It’s better to just have a little better laptime and be ahead of them in qualifying anyway.

      2. Obviously Kubica’s car performance was a far cry from Q and practices. Neither good speed in slow corners nor in straights. I couldn’t know why.
        Perhaps comparisons of speed traps from race and Q could explain how big was the issue with rev limiter. Bizarre and unlucky again to pit the same time as Hulk. What a letdown. A race to forget.

    3. how can he not be using hsi top speed advantage, yet be stuck on the rev limiter? by pure definition the top speed is when you hit the rev limiter in top gear, so he hs effectively contradicted himself.

      1. The top speed is effectively increased when you get a tow, but since he’s already on the limiter he cannot go faster.

    4. Kubica needs to be more aggressive in trying to overtake a vehicle that has equal or slightly less performance than his. It seems like he won’t be confident enough to overtake cars even if he gets a good car unless he gets something like a red bull.

      However, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe he knows what his car is capable of and he balances risks accordingly, thus making him such a great driver.

      1. I kind of disagree. Kubica is actually an aggressive driver. If you watch Singapore 2010, he overtook one after another making his way up to 7.

        1. But those overtaking moves weren’t of cars of

          “equal or slightly less performance than his”

          due to the tyre situation

          1. But Singapore is not an easy track to overtake on… no matter what tyres you got. I think Kubica is a great overtaker and he can definitely take cars of the same pace on, last sunday was just not one of his best days.

            1. This is not the first time though. He got stuck behind Rosberg although he had the faster car in some other race (I cant remember which). And maybe even in Monaco, where he was right behind vettel for so long (Monaco can be not taken into consideration though, as it would’ve been crazy hard to overtake a Red bull or any car there).

              Anyway, I know Kubica is aggressive, but I feel he’s lost a little bit of confidence in overtaking a car at similar pace.

    5. As I said before: Kubica was stuck behind Hulk for the whole race because he made a mistake, when he decided to pit on the same lap as Nico. We know that Renault doesn’t have the fastest pit crew, so Robert should have stayed out for 2-3 more laps on soft tyres and try to gain some advantage.

      1. Well he should pitted lap(s) earlier!
        Just like Button did but I don’t think it was his choice (they told him when to pit).

        1. The driver knows the condition of his tyres and sometimes drivers influence team’s decisions in this regard (for example Jenson often decides for himself).

          I think Hulkenberg was holding up Kubica a little bit, so Robert could make next two laps a couple of tenths faster. On top of that the out lap on fresh tyres is always a bit slower. I may be wrong of course, but I think that two or three more laps and he would emerge ahead of Nico.

        2. I totaly agree with Ben and/or spezza. I am v.disapponted with his performance, but anyway my question is: who makes decision to pit?

    6. Wasn’t a good race for Renault, at all.

      This isn’t the first time, where by Renaults had a rubbish strategy. ._.;;

    Comments are closed.