Robert Kubica says inconsistencies through grand prix weekends are hurting his progress through his Formula 1 comeback season.
Kubica returned to the sport after an eight-year absence but he has largely been at the back of the grid, with Williams struggling to extract performance from its recalcitrant FW42.
“It has been complicated and definitely there are things which didn’t help extract the maximum or even put consistency into the whole process,” said Kubica on Thursday.
“From one side if you look some races I think I did pretty well, although I still didn’t maximise, let’s say, I didn’t put everything together for different reasons, sometimes from my mistakes, sometimes not from my mistakes. It’s very difficult.
“Of course Canada was disappointing and very strange. Friday when I missed FP1, in FP2 I found a good rhythm straightaway, then it went completely away, which was disappointing.
“Monaco for example was quite consistent and I was able to let’s say work on the car and try to work also on finding confidence and then on the same side it’s very valuable.
“Then when you have such big variation in feeling and performance, and probably this is what was the biggest issue [so far in 2019].
“For example Barcelona was a weekend where my lap time from FP1 was much better than from qualifying, or not much better, but if you take into account modes, fuel, tyres, without even judging the conditions, and you suddenly miss one second of the performance, it’s quite annoying. It’s difficult to understand.
“Canada I think the guys found some reasons and things were not really correct.”
When asked by Motorsport Week about the Canada findings, Kubica responded merely with: “There were some issues.”
Team-mate George Russell, when asked about inconsistencies, moved to defend Kubica.
“We’ve had a very difficult car balance all year and it’s not been very predictable and stuff,” he said.
“It can also be a perception of how… I think one thing to remember is also how the English is interpreted. And certain words can be taken out of context.
“I think for these guys, I’ve got a lot of respect for the foreign drivers having to do all this in English. My Polish is non-existent, I don’t know a single word.
“You can’t expect every driver to know exactly what that one word thoroughly means and it could be a difference. I can have the same interpretation of a car but use one different word which makes a big difference to the interpretation. It’s not an easy job.”
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