Q&A with Robert Kubica

"Five months ago the team was in a difficult position and now we are on the front row in Monaco"

By Franck Drui

15 May 2010 - 21:21
Q&A with Robert Kubica

Robert, you dominated qualifying until the final moments. Tell us about the session…

It has been a good effort for us, for the team and for myself. We took a different approach and saved two sets of new options for Q3. My performance in Q2 allowed me to progress easily to Q3 and I think we got the most from the car. Having said that, my final run in Q3 was not ideal. I pushed very hard on the first lap because the track was clear and you never know what can happen in Monaco, especially with traffic. I knew that Mark was just a bit in front of me, but I didn’t know what he would do so I continued pushing hard on my second lap. My first sector was very quick, but unfortunately in the second half of the lap the tyres were already gone, so I struggled in the last sector and just managed to repeat my lap time. Of course when you are so close to pole, you would like to take it, but I think we can be proud of our performance today.

Were you surprised by Mark’s performance?

The Red Bull was extremely quick in Barcelona and so there was no reason to expect that we would qualify ahead of them here. So in a way I was surprised to be able to match the pace of Mark and Sebastian. But there was no miracle because things don’t change in a couple of days. We need to remain realistic and be happy with our great performance today. Five months ago the team was in a difficult position and now we are on the front row in Monaco. I would like to thank all the guys at the factories in Enstone and Viry for their hard work recently, which has contributed to this result.

Is the balance of the car to your liking here?

The balance could be improved but it’s not too bad. In qualifying the balance was similar to what we had on Thursday and this morning. We changed two or three things this morning because we were worried that we would get a lot of bottoming of the car with heavy fuel. So we have raised the ride height a bit. That was a slight disadvantage for qualifying, but I think it will be better for the race.

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