Robert Kubica has moved to lower expectations of a star performance in this week’s Rally Germany – his first World Rally Championship asphalt outing in a top-class car.All seven of the 2008 Canadian Grand Prix winner’s outright rally victories have come on asphalt, and his best ever WRC result was fifth overall in Germany last year, when he also won WRC2 in a Citroen DS3 RRC.
But the Pole believes the constant need to use his right arm – which still has limitations from the 2011 rally accident that ended his F1 career – to handbrake his Ford Fiesta RS through the hairpins in the vineyards could cost him time.
“The characteristics of these roads with lots of hairpins and tight junctions are extremely difficult with my limitations,” said Kubica. “I had a few issues there in 2013 and this year it might be even trickier since some of the stages are reversed.
“From what I remember, that means that there will be lots of very tight uphill hairpins, and it’s always more difficult to turn the car into these types of hairpins than it is on the downhill sections.”
Kubica talked down his chances of a podium finish or better on Sunday.
“Some people have high hopes when it comes to my result, but I think we have to be realistic,” he said. “We’ve done some tests and the feeling on tarmac is quite good. The weather was a bit unreliable, so it was quite difficult to do some consistent work on the setup of the car. But apart from that, everything went smoothly and I think that we are well prepared. We will try to do our own rally and remember how tricky these stages can be.”