Another steady performance for Kubica and BMW Sauber. (LAT photo)
Robert Kubica underlined the fact that a win for BMW can’t be far away by taking another second place in Monaco.
The Pole led the race for a while after Felipe Massa’s early incident, and ultimately beat the Brazilian fair and square, although Lewis Hamilton trounced them both. Kubica’s early pit stop showed that he was the lightest of the top runners in qualifying.
“We started from the third row and the car was OK, but nothing fantastic,” said Kubica. “The first few laps I was struggling a lot as we were not expecting so much rain. I had the pressure as Fernando Alonso was trying to overtake me and I was struggling a lot but then once the tires started working I managed to close the gap to Kimi and I was around one-and-a-half seconds quicker but I couldn’t overtake him.
“Unfortunately for him Kimi got a drive-through penalty, so I had a free track. I was lapping a bit quicker than Felipe and when he did the mistake I was leading the race. It was really, really difficult as the car was sliding everywhere but I think for everybody it was the same, so I was just trying to do as less mistakes as possible.
“After the first pit stop I was struggling with graining on the rear tires and Felipe managed to stay ahead of me after his first pit stop. He was much heavier even though he was pulling away, then suddenly the tires started working again and I closed massively the gap to Felipe, in two laps something like five seconds. I was much quicker but again I couldn’t overtake. I was lucky that Glock came out from the pits with grooved tires and as soon as I saw that he was lapping two seconds quicker I told the team to put grooved tires, which we did, and that’s why we overtook Felipe in the pit stops.”
His consistent finishing means that Kubica is fourth in the championship and only six points off the lead.
“We also have to see that if in Australia I had finished, we would have at least six points more and the worst race result would be fourth place, so I don’t think that’s bad. But to be honest, we are there with such a lot of points because we are the most consistent team and driver in the championship. I have been taking the maximum from the car in every race, I think and maybe some qualifying laps like the second run here was not the best one, but I still managed to stay very close to McLaren and Ferrari, which was not easy.
“I think our car here was not what we were expecting, at least what I was expecting, looking at last year’s performance, last year’s experience. I would even risk saying that we had a better car here last year than this year. But still, the circumstances were good for us. I did a very good race, I think with a lot of miracles to bring the car home and second place is a great result for myself and for the team.”
