Robert Kubica: “It looks like a tricky weekend…”

Robert Kubica expects Bridgestone’s tyre choice and the threat of rain to make the German GP weekend unpredictable.

Friday’s practice is almost certain to be wet, and there’s a chance of rain on Saturday, which means that teams could struggling to get much knowledge of the supersoft and hard tyres.

“I think it will be tricky, and definitely the weather can have a big influence,” said Kubica on Thursday in Hockenheim. “Even if it’s dry, it depends on the temperature, on the track conditions, which will have a big influence especially on the soft tyre, but also on the hard tyre. So it looks like a tricky weekend from the tyre point of view.

“For racing it might be something different, it might be difficult. To be honest it’s difficult to say what will happen and how big an influence it will have on the show.”

Kubica says a lack of dry running could help or hinder particular drivers.

“It can work in both ways, it can work in a good direction for you, a benefit, or a disadvantage, depending on overall car performance and how you set-up your car. There were some races where we started Friday very strong, there were some weekends where we started Friday and we were struggling, with not an ideal set-up or balance of the car.

“Of course this will make quite a big [influence] if for example the first time we put dry tyres will be Sunday at the start of the race. This will make for sure quite difficult life, and it will be difficult to predict what you need from the car and stuff like this. So it looks like a pretty interesting weekend from a tyre point of view and weather points of view.”

Kubica says it’s very hard to judge how the form book will look this weekend, not least because teams are now honing their recent developments.

“It’s very difficult to predict. In Silverstone our gap was quite big compared to the top cars, and we struggled much more in qualifying. We’ll have to see. A lot of people are having F-Ducts and blown floors, so it’s getting quite a difficult task for us.

“A lot of teams are getting on top of the F-Duct, so now the F-Duct is working properly, so again it will be I think quite a difficult weekend from the performance point of view. As I said before it’s difficult to judge and get a proper idea.”