Robert Kubica says Williams has to understand a “surprise” balance shift that affected his FW42 during qualifying for the Chinese Grand Prix.
Williams has struggled for pure performance through the early stages of 2019, often lapping a second off the pace of the midfield, leaving Kubica and George Russell scrapping for last.
Russell edged Kubica by 0.028s to maintain his unbeaten run in qualifying and the Pole expressed frustration at the changing nature of the FW42.
“The balance shifted quite a lot and I got completely different balance which I was not expecting, it took me by surprise,” said Kubica.
“I had massive oversteer. We’ve struggled with understeer all weekend. We have to try and understand this as it came.
“[On the] second run the car balance came a bit [more] to the normal side but still nothing like yesterday, we have to understand those shifts, if it is track conditions, also I was first leaving the garage so maybe track conditions improved.
“It’s important we understand else it’s getting a surprise and you don’t know what to expect on next runs.”
Williams is the only team on the grid without a point and Kubica is braced for another challenging grand prix.
“It will be a long race,” he said. “We will have to see how is the car handling, it’s difficult to expect [anything], difficult to know what will happen.
“We are very sensitive to everything, we lack the grip, it’s normal we struggle more than others, it’s definitely a long race for tyres, so we’ll see.”
Due to Antonio Giovinazzi and Alexander Albon missing qualifying Russell will line up from 17th, with Kubica 18th, the first time this season the duo have avoided the back row of the grid.
