We will have to find the best compromise for Hockenheim - Kubica
Renault's Robert Kubica heads into the German GP expecting that his R30 will allow him to keep the strong string of results where he finishes in near the top five. And after a DNF in Silverstone, he is hopeful of remaining competitive now that the F-duct and blown diffusers are the norm across the paddock.
Robert, Silverstone was a tricky weekend for you, culminating in your first retirement of the year. Talk us through it… "In the end, we were struggling with the general grip of the car and our feeling on the performance side was that we were less competitive than we had been at the previous race. Everything was looking grey until the final part of qualifying, but I managed to qualify sixth which I think was quite surprising looking at our performance up to that point. It was even more surprising to be third in the first stint, after a good start and a good first lap, but our pace wasn’t great in the race and, even before the driveshaft problem, the car didn’t feel like it usually does. I think much of it was down to circuit characteristics because our least competitive circuits this year have been Barcelona and Silverstone, both of which have a lot of high-speed corners."
Looking to Hockenheim, do you expect the R30 to better suit this circuit? "It’s a more normal track with a more normal mix of corners. There are two very high-speed corners, at turn 1 and turn 12, and the rest are low and medium-speed. The track surface is very smooth, so you have to get the absolute maximum out of the car’s mechanical grip, and there is also one very long straight, where you have to make sure the car is competitive on top speed. All the cars we are racing already have an f-duct system, and this makes our life harder because we may have to reduce downforce to be competitive on top speed, which could cost us in the corners. We will have to evaluate the best compromise for us on Friday."
For this race, there will be a bigger gap between the tyre compounds, with Bridgestone bringing the super-soft and the hard tyres. What challenges will that present? "At first sight, the super-soft may struggle to do even one lap in qualifying and the hard compound could go on forever! The weather and the track conditions will have a big influence on how they perform: from experience, it will be tricky to make the super-soft tyre work properly, while the hard tyre should be okay. The other factor is that we may see a big balance shift between compounds, and that may make the weekend quite tricky and interesting from the tyre point of view."
What are your performance expectations for the weekend? "As usual, I will try to do my best and to extract the maximum from the car. Most of the teams we are racing now have both the f-duct and the blown floor, so I think it could be quite a tough weekend, and we need to make sure that our pace is more competitive than at the last race. But if it’s what we call a tough weekend for us is like in Silverstone, when we still could have finished P4 or P5, then I’ll take it straight away."
Interview source: Renault F1
