Kubica: “tyres already gone” on last lap

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Robert Kubica starts the Monaco Grand Prix from second on the grid.

It’s the best qualifying performance by a Renault driver since Fernando Alonso took pole position at the Hungaroring last year

And Kubica driver reckoned he would have been closer to Mark Webber’s pole position time if he’d managed his tyres better in Q3:

We took a different approach to the session and saved two sets of option tyres for Q3 so I could do two runs on new tyres. On the final lap of my second run I did a very quick first sector, but for the second half of the lap the tyres were already gone so I struggled for grip and could only match my earlier lap time.

When you come so close to pole, you are always a bit disappointed to miss out, but I think we can be very happy with our performance because we are in a great position to have a strong race tomorrow.
Robert Kubica

Kubica was the fastest driver through the first sector of the lap – over a tenth of a second faster than Webber – but the Red Bull drivers was quickest through the rest of the lap.

Team mate Petrov starts 14th after crashing at Sainte Devote in Q2. He explained what happened:

I was struggling with the brake balance and my front tyres were locking all the time. I tried to change the brake balance to the rear, but it was too much for my first flying lap and the rear locked, I spun and touched the wall.
Vitaly Petrov

2010 Monaco Grand Prix

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    Keith Collantine
    Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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    11 comments on “Kubica: “tyres already gone” on last lap”

    1. So if Kubica has to start the race on these “gone” tyres, wont he have a big problem?

      1. ‘Gone’ in terms of getting pole position, i.e. instead of setting the second best time setting the fastest time. They only experienced one out lap, two flying laps and one in lap. In short: they were wrecked qualification-wise, but race-wise I don’t think he’ll complain too much. Let’s hope…

    2. Yeah, will be interesting to see who gets on the medium compound tyres first. The super-softs will last 15 laps if they’re lucky, and some, a lot less than that!

      First time for a long time that F1 cars will go around Monaco with race fistance fuel. Bring it on!

      1. Race ‘distance’ fuel that is.

      2. Yeah, it will be very interesting. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the McLaren’s making the first moves for new tyres. Especially Button who has been struggling to switch the option tyres on.

        I guess this circuit is all about track position though…

    3. For polish website he said that he werent able to het heat into the tires and thats why he said “gone”

      It’s just because his lap werent going to be fast enough

    4. Brilliant Q3 strategy for Kubica. Hot lap after hot lap!
      Unlike the other teams that stuck to the usual last lap heroics.

    5. No disrespect to Kubica’s great achievement, but I did wonder why he was doing so well. I speculated beforehand that someone might just go for it and hope to keep everyone behind them and then pit first.

      But Robert might not mean “gone” in the sense of “no more good use out of them possible”. Either way, it should be very interesting!

      1. Maybe Renault found out, what the Qualli trick is Red Bull uses and did it as well. They tanked Robert up with an Energy drink :-o

    6. He needs to make sure that he get himself back behind the two Red Bulls.

    7. I imagine all driver will make their compulsory stop on the penultimate lap, if they are unable to build a big enough margin to the chasing pack.

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