Indeed, the Pole's resurgent team-mate Nick Heidfeld has out-scored him over recent outings, and Kubica needs to get back in amongst the grandees once more if his fading world championship hopes are not to be irreversibly extinguished.
Timo Glock's debut rostrum finish in Budapest has clearly given the reigning GP2 Series Champion both the hunger and conviction to repeat that feat – achieved entirely on merit, courtesy of a superb performance behind the wheel of his TF108.
With the pace and consistency of both Glock and Jarno Trulli, the Cologne-based outfit looks well-placed to see off the threats of Renault, Red Bull Racing and Williams behind in the fraught tussle for fourth spot in the end-of-season constructors' rankings – but who comes next is anyone's guess.
Performance-wise at least, Renault would appear to have stolen a march over similarly-powered Red Bull and multiple former champions Williams, and the
Régie seems finally to have got a greater handle on the previously frail reliability of its R28 too. What's more, Nelsinho Piquet now being in a position to back up home hero Fernando Alonso in the points-scoring stakes – with the young Brazilian's self-belief immeasurably reinforced following his remarkable Hockenheim podium – has given Renault, like Toyota, two strings to its bow, whereas RBR has in essence only one.
Whilst David Coulthard invariably displays strong race day pace, his poor qualifying form has more often than not left the Scot on the back foot come lights-out and – in such a competitive field as is the case in 2008 – with just too much work to do.
Though the ever-consistent Mark Webber has notched up points on six occasions this year, Coulthard has troubled the scorers just once, in Montreal, and the Milton Keynes-based concern's failure to keep pace in terms of development compared to its close rivals has seen RBR slip some eleven points adrift in the battle for fourth, with no top eight finishes since Magny-Cours four races ago. Whilst points may be a tall order this weekend, however, they are far from impossible.
A similar result for Williams, by contrast, would be something of a triumph in itself – Nico Rosberg's propensity to shine on street courses notwithstanding – given the Grove-based outfit's seemingly relentless slide down the grid, with just four points tallied from the last seven grands prix and the bulk of the team's efforts now focussed on development of its 2009 machine.
Indeed, much the same can be said for Honda, whose 2008 campaign has fallen a long way beneath expectations, whilst Scuderia Toro Rosso could yet leapfrog both in the constructors' standings should Sebastian Vettel's strong form continue. The Red Bull-bound star's best result of the season to-date came in a similar setting in Monaco – so he cannot be discounted from contention for the bottom end of the points-scoring positions in Valencia.
Force India, finally, may be eyeing further improvements to their package this coming weekend, but whether they will be sufficient to drag the underachieving Silverstone-based squad off the back of the grid remains to be seen. The team can at least take comfort in the fact that the last time one of its drivers ran up inside the points – and well up, in fourth place – it was in the form of Adrian Sutil at Monaco, around a street circuit…
by Russell Atkins
