Robert Kubica has dismissed the suggestion of Pirelli’s tyres being behind his and Williams’ 2019 struggles as a “cheap excuse”.
Kubica made his return to the sport in 2019 after an eight-year absence, but the comeback story soon went downhill with the Polish driver struggling against team-mate George Russell in a terrible FW42.
Russell would win the qualifying battle 21-0, though Kubica would at least score their only point of the season with P10 in Germany.
That year was enough for Kubica and he moved on to Alfa Romeo, returning to the Hinwil-based team as a development driver, but he refuses to use the “cheap excuse” of blaming Pirelli for 2019.
“I think I am clever enough and good enough to understand what I should do with the tyres,” Kubica told Motorsport.com.
“And still, it’s not a driver which is choosing which way to go and how the tyres should operate, it’s still teamwork.
“Of course, ultimately it is the driver who is driving the car, but we have exactly the same targets and exactly the same things operationally regarding the tyres.
“I see there is a cheap excuse for an unsuccessful season.”
Kubica believes Williams‘ lack of feedback made an already difficult season even more challenging.
“I have my opinions on many areas where I definitely could do better, but I was not helped as well,” he explained.
“With the circumstances we were in, it was extremely important for me to start the season with a good consistency so I could build up my comeback on this. Unfortunately, this didn’t happen.
“Then there were occasions where I could perform and I did perform well, but they were hidden with some external factors. There were occasions where I definitely could’ve done better, and there were occasions where I didn’t hear any answer, or I had no idea why we were so underperforming from day to day.
“This is something which is worse, because in order to improve you need to understand the reasons. There’s no point of having a medicine for something which isn’t causing your illness.”
The severe injuries Kubica suffered to his right arm in his 2011 rally crash means he must drive “70% left-handed”.
But, he doesn’t think that these limitations were hurting him in high-speed corners.
“Sometimes we want to make people believe that Formula 1 is simple, but it is not,” he said.
“There are a lot of factors which have a big influence on the final result, or on the numbers you see on the clock [stopwatch].
“One of the factors which is not influencing is actually my limitations in high-speed [corners].
“It is true that sometimes there were big variations, but it is also true that when you lack the grip, it is normal that you lose more in more challenging areas.
“Also you lose more when you have two-three corners in a row than only one corner, than a straight line.
“That’s the fact. This is something where I’m sure my limitations are not influencing my driving, on this type of areas.”
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