Formula One news

Kubica: We've lost ground on Ferrari and McLaren

Robert Kubica believes BMW Sauber is not as close to main rivals Ferrari and McLaren as it was in the first part of the Formula 1 season. The Pole lost the lead of the drivers' championship on Sunday and believes it will be very difficult to challenge the McLaren and Ferrari drivers for the championship title.

"We didn't stay (with them)," Kubica told ITV. "In Australia we were quicker than Ferrari, in Malaysia and Bahrain we were quicker than McLaren, in Barcelona we had already quite a big gap to Ferrari but still keeping the pace of McLaren. Then afterwards McLaren on some occasions joined Ferrari.

"Ferrari did improve and it looks like we didn't as much as them and the gap is pretty big - in Magny-Cours it was nearly one second. Also in Monaco and Canada… okay Canada in qualifying we we're helped by track conditions, but then the gap was around 0.6s so pretty big."

"Unfortunately when we did tests in Barcelona, I saw some things but we decided to do something different because the team was convinced it was the right way to go," he said. "But it wasn't - for sure we were not as fast as Ferrari but in Magny-Cours we dropped behind teams like Toyota, Renault and even Red Bull. I think it came from what we chose for the grand prix and we are trying to understand what went wrong for Silverstone. So we should be back to normal pace, which means still quite a big gap Ferrari and McLaren.


"To be honest, with our car, even at full performance the best we can achieve is a fifth place," he said. "It's not enough."But fortunately some teams like McLaren and Ferrari have technical problems, and sometimes the drivers give us a help with some mistakes, like penalties and stuff like that. That's why I'm still there, but if they start not having problems and not making mistakes it will be very difficult to keep up with them. I will try to score, as always, as many points as possible and that's what I did also in Magny-Cours - I just tried to limit the damage and I scored four points, which is not bad."

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