Spa-Francorchamps track talk with Robert Kubica

Spa is one of the best, if not the best place for a driver. I think most of the drivers say that they enjoy driving there. I still prefer Suzuka, but Spa has a unique character. It’s a pretty amazing track and a lot of the corners are not actually corners at all because they are taken at full throttle. The middle sector especially is just amazing.

The set-up for the car is very straightforward. You need good top speed for the first and last sectors because they are very quick with a lot of straights and sections where you are on full throttle. Then you have the middle sector with all the corners, where you need to have downforce.

This year I think most of the cars will be using f-ducts, so the problem of having a car that works in all the sectors will be easier to solve. With the f-duct you can still have a lot of downforce and then reduce the drag to be more efficient on the straights. I think Spa will be one of the best tracks for the f-duct.

Turn one is always difficult on the first lap. It’s tight on entry, but it’s quite wide on the exit so you can take completely different lines. But it’s difficult because you have to make sure that you defend your position without compromising your exit.

Eau Rouge on the first lap is also very tough when you are behind someone because you are losing a lot of downforce. You can risk a lot on entry and going in flat, or at a very high speed, brings you a lot of speed up the hill. But if you have to back off, you lose so much speed on the approach to Les Combes.

The corners after Les Combes are good fun: there are three corners, turns five, six and seven, where you are going from one to the other, and it’s important to keep online. If you make a mistake in the first part of this sequence, you are compromising the other two corners.

The downhill corners, such as the double left-hander of Pouhon, are some of the best and the second sector is really amazing and nice to drive. It’s the kind of track where you can adapt with different lines and different approaches, either taking a quicker entry or sacrificing the entry for a better exit.

There are no easy overtaking opportunities, unless a driver makes a mistake, but this year with f- ducts it might be possible to take a slipstream. So the last chicane might be an overtaking possibility and maybe Les Combes after the long run from Eau Rouge.