Robert Kubica says the most frustrating part of his return to Formula 1 this year has been the lack of wheel-to-wheel racing because his Williams is so uncompetitive.
“The one thing which is I think most painful this year actually that I have been not racing for many years, nine, and I feel like we have very little racing because of the situation we are in and the position we are in this year,” he said.“What is probably [the] biggest fun is, of course, to drive Formula 1 [and] actually in the race to race someone, to have an intense race. Even if you don’t have a battle wheel-to-wheel but you know you have to squeeze everything, you can overtake people in the pit stop, you just have a goal.”
Williams have consistently qualified at the back of the field and often haven’t been quick enough to race their nearest rivals. “This is something which which I think is most painful,” said Kubica.
The situation was slightly better in Mexico, Kubica admitted, where he was able to overtake his team mate George Russell.
A slow puncture erased the progress he had made. But Kubica said it wasn’t worth being frustrated about losing such a lowly result.
“I don’t think I can be frustrated by having a slow puncture when you are fighting for 17th. I was not frustrated after the race. It happened, that’s motorsport.”
“It doesn’t mean that if I’m racing 17th I don’t want to try my best,” he added, “but of course it’s not the end of the world. You cannot be frustrated by losing 17th. Of course you like to have a smoother race without this issue, but in the end I haven’t lost anything.”
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maiagus
2nd November 2019, 13:41
Wait, wait, he couldnt race Russell.
Velocityboy (@velocityboy)
2nd November 2019, 14:56
+1
DAllein (@)
2nd November 2019, 13:46
Yeah, no fun…
Hope he finds some fun elsewhere.
Don’t unferstand why he might want to deal with Haas, which also doesn’t particularly shine this year.
Aleš Norský (@gpfacts)
2nd November 2019, 16:16
Regularly being about seven-tenths slower in qualifying than his rookie teammate, and having been lapped by him on several occasions in races…what else can he do if he insists on staying in F1?
Boudi
2nd November 2019, 16:16
Did he shine himself? Russel is trashing him, he outqualified him at all venues so far and by a margin. Robert shouldn’t have come back to race in F1 cars.
Ben Rowe (@thegianthogweed)
2nd November 2019, 16:32
Just take last race as an example, i think the qualifying gap between him and his team mate was nearly 1.5 seconds. In Q1 there was a smaller gap than this between 1st and 10th!! If say he was in a car in the midfield, with pace this poor. There was just under 1.5 second between Perez in 11th and Russel in 19th. If Kubica was in a midfield car, he would likely still most often qualify right at the back. And I really do think that if he was in a top car, a good deal of the midfield drivers would very often beat him.
svianna (@svianna)
2nd November 2019, 17:49
The most painful part is to know that someone is paying Williams F1 darn good money for you to have the seat in their car and have zero positive coverage of the event. Frank and Claire are surely hoping there will be enough suckers to part with their money for a long time.
Jake
2nd November 2019, 20:13
Love for him to go to Formula E!
Adrian Hancox (@ahxshades)
2nd November 2019, 21:35
So not being able to race us painful, does that mean he won’t take a development role, because they don’t race either.
Big fan of Robert in the past, but if not racing doesn’t work, he needs to own that and walk away