Formula 1's newest race-winner
Robert Kubica has admitted his concern at what he calls BMW-Sauber's ‘poor' form at Magny-Cours so far this weekend, as he looks likely to have to battle hard on race day if he is to successfully defend his world championship lead.
The Pole leapt to the top of the title standings following his flawless triumph in the Canadian Grand Prix a fortnight ago, and currently holds a four-point advantage over
Lewis Hamilton and
Felipe Massa, and seven ahead of defending world champion
Kimi Raikkonen.
That lead has been built on remarkable speed and consistency – with six consecutive top four finishes from the opening seven races of the 2008 campaign – but as he lines up just fifth on the starting grid for the French Grand Prix, behind both a
Renault and a
Toyota, the man from Kraków was left to reflect on just what has gone wrong.
His best time was in fact good enough only for a balance-afflicted and gripless seventh place before the penalties handed out to the two McLaren-Mercedes drivers, six tenths of a second shy of Kimi Raikkonen's pole-setting effort and Kubica's worst qualifying position season-long. Indeed, he had only made it through into Q3 in the first place by less than five hundredths of a second, the last man to make the cut.
“I feel [the car] is quite poor compared to the past,” he acknowledged afterwards. “The gap to the front is quite big, and there are a couple of new cars that have closed the gap in the past few races.
“Maybe we didn't improve as [much], and they made better improvements. It's true that maybe we struggled to find something to keep us up in performance. [Now] we have to try to close the gap and try to stay in front of the group that is coming.”
