Robert Kubica, Williams, Yas Marina, 2019

Kubica believes change which finally made his car “comfortable” was used by team before

RaceFans Round-up

Posted on

| Written by

In the round-up: Robert Kubica says the change to his car which made it feel more comfortable to drive in first practice this weekend had been used on his team mate’s car earlier in the season.

Become a RaceFans Supporter and go ad-free

RaceFans operates thanks in part to the support of its readers. In order to help fund the development and growth of the site please consider becoming a RaceFans Supporter.

For just £1 per month/£12 per year you will also be upgraded to an ad-free account. Sign up and find out more below:

What they say

[icon2019autocoursempu]Kubica was asked for his view on being out-qualified by George Russell at every race this year:

I think generally it hasn’t been easy for either of us, for George and myself. For sure he did a very good job. I just struggled quite a lot many times with losing feeling in the car.

This was also the case here. First practice was the best probably from one area, it was the only session where I felt comfortable this year in the car with one thing. So at least it took us a lot of races but it looks like now the team is on top of it. I had opportunity to test it on Friday. Probably it was used in the past as well with George.

But it doesn’t matter really. I mean in the end, when you are having such a difficult year, it changes very little if you are P18, P20, what it counts is what is your feeling and your personal view of what you did and what you could do better, what do you achieved. Although it’s difficult to look at it now because, of course, the season has been pretty negative.

Quotes: Dieter Rencken

Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free

Social media

Notable posts from Twitter, Instagram and more:

Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free

Comment of the day

As the season draws to a close, the operational errors which have marked Ferrari’s campaign continue:

Ferrari really need a ‘reset’ button. I’ve been a fan of theirs since I was a child during the Schumacher years. Leclerc has so much talent, but I don’t think Ferrari is the team for him at this stage. The team haven’t done much in helping Vettel show his talent. Alonso also couldn’t showcase his talent during his time. On an operational basis, I think they’re the worst performing team on the grid. Even Haas seems to be doing a better job.

Is it really worth it coming out way last just for the couple of split seconds the lap gives you between the guy coming out first? I’d understand if this was Monza or Spa. They seem to do this all the time.
L (@Lebz)

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to James Kehoe, Blythe Schembri and Dan!

If you want a birthday shout-out tell us when yours is via the contact form or adding to the list here.

Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

Got a potential story, tip or enquiry? Find out more about RaceFans and contact us here.

10 comments on “Kubica believes change which finally made his car “comfortable” was used by team before”

  1. Thought it aas a bit pathetic of Crofty to just carry on about how Robert had veen veaten all year wutgout even mentioning the final difference between them was a half a tenth.

    1. Half a tenth of what? I believe George beat Robert by a lot more than that in qualifying. 21-0 shouldn’t earn you a ride for the next year. Just like Stoffel.

    2. @Mr G, Russel was half a second faster than Kubica. Across basically every single metric through the year Russel has demolished Kubica. While Robert will finish with a point, and you’ve still got to commend his self-belief and drive to get back to this level, this year has shown that he is absolutely, beyond a shadow of a doubt, not up to the F1 standard any more. If any other driver had been beaten as comprehensively, especially when their teammate is a rookie, the outcry would have been deafening. Williams needed his cash, so they couldn’t sack him, but the only reason he’s escaped so relatively unscathed in public opinion is the story around his comeback.

    3. Mr G, as others have noted, Russell qualified just over half a second ahead of Kubica, not half a tenth – Russell’s best lap was a 1m38.717s lap and Kubica’s best lap was 1m39.236s

  2. ”Is it really worth it coming out way last just for the couple of split seconds the lap gives you between the guy coming out first? I’d understand if this was Monza or Spa. They seem to do this all the time.”
    – Spot on, indeed. Better get a lap than not get a lap should always be the approach. I doubt the difference in track-conditions towards the end of Q3 between going out with 2 minutes to go and 3 minutes to go is that significant anyway, so not really worth it to let everything get very tight with the timing, but this is the excuse everyone always uses to try and justify letting everything get extremely tight with the time remaining.

  3. During his first tenure in F1, Kubica was one of the most respect drivers in the field.
    After the injuries he have, everybody respected is tenacity and motivation to keep fighting to come back.

    But this year portrayed a different Kubica, bitter and without awareness of the reality: he is not good enough to drive in F1. I think he come back to prove anything to himself or to someone else, but this season does not prove anything. He can drive a F1, yes, no one ever doubted it, Zanardi also drove a F1 after his much more serious injuries. What people doubted was that he was able or not to drive competitively, and that, he wasn’t. 21-0 against a rookie, taking more than 45s in much of the races without SC and sometimes more than a minute is a difference that I woudn’t expect if we put Stroll and Hamilton in the same team.

    I respect is willing to fight, but convincing some national companies to pay for ones comeback even when he was clearly not fit for it is something that I can’t respect.

  4. Re CoTD – I agree Ferrari have been sloppy operationally, but their problems now are considerably different to during Alonso’s years there imo. Currently they have a fundamentally fast and competitive car which they have struggled to get the most out of, from a variety of (probably) set up problems in the first half of the year, poor strategy, driver mismanagement, driver errors etc.

    During Alonso’s tenure only really in 2010 did they have a car which was competitive on both Saturday and Sunday (but not class leading), but I think they were overall pretty good operationally and maximising the potential of what they had – hence being able to take the championship to the final race in 2010 and 2012 despite not really meriting a championship on pure pace. I also disagree that Alonso couldn’t showcase his talent there – I think we saw the absolute best of Alonso during his Ferrari years, but just not the results he/they would’ve expected.

    I think people’s perception of Ferrari having been bad on strategy back then might be down to one very high profile strategy error – in Abu Dhabi 2010, which probably cost them a championship. But this seemed a rare occurrence in those years and would probably have been forgotten about if Abu Dhabi wasn’t the final race of the season.

    1. @keithedin I think it was Alonso that made Ferrari strategies look good. Just like Hamilton is doing at Mercedes. These guys just manage to extract the maximum whatever the circumstances.

      Like in Hungary when they gave Hamilton a fresh set of soft near the end of the race. It was staggering that Hamilton made that work. Lap after lap on the utter limit. Then people say it was a “lucky gamble”. Sure it was “lucky” that it worked anyway because Verstappen ran out of tyres well before the end of the race. Hamilton would have won just as easily if he just had kept going.

      We saw Leclerc take that gamble in Abu Dhabi. How far did he get?

      Silverstone another example of Hamilton making a poorer strategy work to his advantage.

      Try putting Vettel on a high pressure strategy and hope that he doesn’t spin the car?

  5. (on Williams/Kubica)
    Yeah, sure, they were using this secret stuff only on Russell’s car for Kubica to suffer and not have any opportunities to earn more points.


    Either his words are lacking some context, or he again blames the team which gave him an F1 comeback.

    Robert, whichever it is, I hope you really enjoy your post-F1 life… outside of F1.
    For the good of both you and F1.

  6. Ugh more baseless accusations as to why he was utterly annihilated by a rookie. As if Williams would have anything to gain by holding back one of their drivers on purpose.

    Glad to see Kubica out. What an utter disgrace of a human being he is. Incredible.

Comments are closed.