Williams' Robert Kubica says he was “completely shocked” by his crash during practice in Brazil, which limited his on-track running to just a handful of minutes.
Kubica did not participate in the opening session in order for the team’s test and development driver Nicholas Latifi to have his sixth and final grand prix outing of the campaign.
Kubica returned to action for the second session but on his first push lap at Interlagos he crashed as he exited the Senna S, suffering a substantial impact with the barriers.
Kubica revealed he was surprised by losing the car but later realised that a combination of Hard tyres, and residual water thrown up off a kerb by the Haas ahead on track, had contributed to his off.
“I was completely shocked what happened,” said Kubica. “I was completely unprepared, but it’s difficult to be prepared in such a situation.
“This was my first lap around here, I lost in a very nasty way the car, which I didn’t really understand.
“But after reviewing, the Haas who was in front of me by a few seconds, he went off, over the kerb, and pulled out quite a lot of water.
“You can see when I approached with the front left tyre, I was lifting a lot of water. I was with the Hard tyre, lost it completely in a nasty way.”
Kubica has endured a troubled season with Williams – his first in the championship since 2010 – and added that: “It’s frustrating because we need a bit of luck.
“It’s not an easy situation for us, today we didn’t have luck. It was unfortunate I was the first car coming there.
“But that’s how it is. That’s motorsport. It was very strange.
“But I only understood it when I saw video, otherwise I thought something had broke – but it didn’t break, there was no failure, it’s just I was with Hard tyres, went over the water, and lost it.”
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