Question: Robert, you’ve had a long association with Renault throughout your career and now you’re racing for Renault in F1. How does it feel?
Robert Kubica: I’m very happy to be here and, as you say, I do have a long history with Renault. In fact my single-seater career started in a Formula Renault in 2001 and then in 2005 I won the World Series by Renault. That gave me the chance to test for the Renault F1 Team and started my journey in Formula One. Although my career took a different direction with BMW, it’s great to be back with Renault where I have a lot of good memories. I already know a lot of the people here and over the winter I have seen how motivated everybody is to improve our competitiveness and start winning races again.
Question: Renault is only your second Formula One Team so you must be excited by a fresh challenge…
Robert Kubica: Absolutely! I’m still relatively new to Formula One and I’m looking forward to meeting new people and learning how a different team operates. As I’ve already said, I feel that I have a special connection with this team and I like the attitude that Renault takes towards racing. The atmosphere here is very friendly and open, and the team knows what it takes to win so I feel very comfortable in this environment.
Question: Will the refuelling ban and introduction of narrower front tyres have a big impact on the racing?
Robert Kubica: I don’t think it will have a major impact on the racing, but it will certainly change the behaviour of the car. For example, we can expect to see a huge difference between qualifying lap times and the lap times at the start of the race. When the car is full of fuel it will probably add 150 kgs of weight and that will have a huge effect on driving style – especially for braking points. With the narrower tyres we will have to be careful not to wear them out too quickly and we will need to adapt the set-up and weight distribution to cope with this.
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