A turning point? The driver did the best

Some people stopped believing in Kubica’s points this season, others knew they needed patience. Today it worked, despite the big setback in the boxes. What did Robert say after the 1st race at Assen, how much did he lose in the boxes and how was his rivalry? I invite you to read and watch!

Results

Competition shortcut

The course of the Kubica race

After poor qualifications, Kubica started from 15th place and again scored a terrible first few meters, losing a lot of distance to his rivals and falling to the last place. Kubica had a strong spinning of the wheels on a wet starting spot.

And race one at the @ttcircuitassen is go – and that’s what we call a start by @ Fhabsburg62!#WeLoveDTM #DTM2020 #DTMoments #FeelTheRoar pic.twitter.com/YyQ5zb4hGJ

— DTM (@DTM) September 5, 2020

Kubica’s first two laps were average, but then he caught the pace and caught up with his rivals, fighting each other. After overtaking Scherer Wittman, a penalty for the Audi driver and Green’s problems, Kubica drove 13.

As was the case more than once this season, when others lost pace, Kubica kept his time, regaining time for his rivals. When the pit-stops started, Kubica stayed on the track at some point 4. His pace was slowing down, but it didn’t look tragic. Then raindrops appeared. This light fall could cost Kubica a few seconds. The stint was extended – in the hope of rain – by 2 laps. Kubica came down about 30 minutes of the race.

Unfortunately, the pit-stop of ORLEN Team ART is terrible, Kubica loses 8 seconds on it, but most importantly, he loses his position on the track.

Robert Kubica emphasizes that P6 was within reach. Aaaaale
First, the pit stop:
“It’s not about how much I lost (8 seconds), but where I went – after Van der Linde.”

– Aldona Marciniak (@AldonaMarciniak) September 5, 2020

Kubica’s pace is not great at first, but then the fresher tires and their great management make themselves felt and the Pole is able to catch up with the rivals. Kubica used most of his laps with the DRS and the push-to-pass on the first stint, but he started making laps a second or two faster than his rivals before him. He approached Glock, Eng, Auer and Newey quickly.

After driving two laps less than 0.3 seconds behind Engie, Kubica makes a bold maneuver and overtakes the factory BMW driver. For this overtaking, the Pole will receive a warning – it was at the limit. But this was the fight he wanted in the DTM – this was what he had been waiting for for almost 9 years, not being able to fight in Williams last year. Ultimately, this risky maneuver (which we did not see due to the poor transmission performance) will give him the opportunity to score points.

Cezary Gutowski on his Facebook profile quoted Kubica, who commented on the fight with Eng: “Audi drivers help each other and BMW drivers help each other, but as far as I am concerned … it looks like I am driving another car. I certainly got no help with any overtaking. Philipp in particular made it very difficult for me for two laps, blocking everywhere. All other factory cars help each other. This is an added difficulty, especially in a race like this, when you are trying to regain lost time. I lost 6-7 seconds behind him. Usually, if I was driving a factory car, they would let me pass, because that’s what you do. I will say this. I am definitely racing with everyone else! “

Kubica will have 5 laps left and the same number of DRS and push-to pass. He makes up for his 5-second loss to Auer very quickly. They both get closer to Newey as well. The Audi WRT driver makes a mistake and both BMW drivers overtake him. On the last lap, Kubica carries out this attack on Auer and advances to 10th place.

1 point for 10th place is the first point in history for a Polish driver in the DTM series.

Statements

Kubica commented on the point in his style.

“We can’t be happy with 10th place, but at least we’ve made progress. Unfortunately, the pace in qualifying is too weak. Today we saw again that our car drives differently. Other BMWs with these settings would not be running. ” RK

– Cezary Gutowski (@CezaryGutowski) September 5, 2020

You can see that he was counting on much more and it was bad for him that such a rare good behavior of the car and great work behind the wheel were ruined by the pit-stop.

We could have finished much higher, 6th – 7th place. The tenth position is not something to be proud of, but we took a step forward – Robert Kubica. – But first we need to work on our package. On the one hand we had a good pace, on the other hand we lost in the pit stop pic.twitter.com/8jxadY999V

– Aldona Marciniak (@AldonaMarciniak) September 5, 2020

Nevertheless, you can see more optimism in the statements of Kubica, who, when asked not so long ago when to score points, said that it might not be possible until the end of the season. Today, quoted by Cezary Gutowski, he says: “If we solve our problems, I see no reason why we should not fight for points. I am convinced that as soon as we manage to deal with the characteristics of our car and understand what is happening with our package, we will be higher. “

You can find the full statements of Robert in the post below.

Race analysis

Starting order

Best lapy

Robert scored his 5th time in the race today, 0.741 behind Scherer. They all followed the same strategy, which is why this result is worth appreciating.

All laps

Let’s compare Kubica’s times to the results of the winner of the race – Robin Frijns and Phillip Eng, with whom the Pole had an interesting duel.

Sectors

Finally, we don’t have to look for Robert Kubica at the bottom of sector times. In the first one, the Pole had the 7th result, losing almost 0.4 seconds to the fastest. In the second, he had the 6th time, losing a quarter of a second. In the third, it was the third result, just 0.2 seconds behind Scherer.

Kubica’s best theoretical time was therefore 143,000 times better than the real best lap and it was the fifth result in the field.

Speeds

It was still poor when it comes to top speeds. Only Glock was lower than Kubica, and the Pole was losing 6 km / h to the fastest Ferdinand Habsburg.

Position changes

Pit-stopy

Of course, today’s Kubica pit-stop was the worst in the stakes. The Pole lost 8.8 seconds to the fastest.

Driver classification

With today’s result, Kubica leaves the last place in the overall standings for Fabio Scherera, who remains the only driver without a point score this season.