Kubica still concerned about BMW progress

Kubica still concerned about BMW progress

By Jonathan Noble Thursday, September 25th 2008, 16:49 GMT


Robert Kubica says his concerns about BMW Sauber's lack of progress this year have not been eased by talks he had with team boss Mario Theissen in Monza.

The Pole has made no secret of the fact that he is unhappy the outfit did not keep up the momentum of their early season form and match the development pace of rivals McLaren and Ferrari.

And although Theissen and he talked over their differences at the Italian Grand Prix two weeks ago, Kubica says that his worries have not been lifted much.

"My view has not changed a lot," said Kubica. "We did sit down but I think there was no top secret and no miracles in the talks. It was good to talk. But the situation was not really changed."

Kubica is frustrated that BMW Sauber were fighting for the world championship until the midway part of the season, but have lost ground to McLaren and Ferrari over the second half.

He has been pushing the team hard to try and ramp up their efforts - and in Monza said that he felt he was the only one at BMW Sauber who still believed they could win this title.

"Of course as a driver you always want the maximum, and you always want a better car and to be a bit quicker," he said. "Even if you win, you can always find things to improve and to get stronger. There is no secret that we did not develop as was predicted.

"Lately, we don't have big steps forward in performance but still we are managing good results. If we hadn't had the problem in Spa with the second pitstop most probably I would have finished three races in a row on the podium – even though there have been some strange circumstances.

"But still, maybe lap time wise we are not the strongest but reliability is very good and we are able to do strong results."

Kubica believes the team are doing all they can to try and improve matters, but thinks they lost their way by choosing wrong development paths at time.

When asked why he felt the team could not keep up the development, he said: "I don't know. For sure we made some mistakes in choosing some new parts, but we came back very quickly – so the response of the team was very good.

"But just we struggled to improve the car, to find something that gives us better performance. We always had new parts on the car, but they didn't give us the performance we were expecting from the wind tunnel or simulation."

He added: "I am racing to win and in the end I have seen lately that I am losing the gap. We had a strong fight with McLaren in the beginning of the season, and then also with Ferrari.

"Then our performance dropped a bit compared to those two teams. Then other teams have got stronger – Renault have got closer and Toro Rosso as well, and not just at Monza because before they were the same strength or even quicker than us before. We have to concentrate and keep pushing to fight until the end.

"Everybody is motivated pretty well in our team and trying to do their best. We have to say it is not too bad. Our car has been very reliable compared to last year, we did massive improvement in terms of reliability, but we are not as strong as in the beginning. But that is racing, that is sport."

Theissen says he is not too hurt by Kubica being concerned about the rate of progress the team are making.

"I am really happy he wants more and more and more, otherwise he would definitely not win the championship," explained the BMW motorsport director. "The question is what can we do and what areas can we improve. In my view this is very constructive."

And Theissen admitted that he too shares Kubica's concerns about the team's development path throughout 2008.

"What we have seen in the past month is slower development pace, or performance increase, than some competitors. But that is not down to us having stopped the programme, it is what you see in R&D all the time.

"Sometimes you make a big step, then some other projects don't match expectations. Then you sit down again, rethink and try to understand what goes on, and redirect the next projects. Then you will make a big step again.

"This is just normal, we have learned and still are learning – mainly in the area of aero. That will be applied to either the final improvements of this season or definitely for the 2009 car."