Kubica Admits Title Battle with No. 51 Ferrari in Mind at COTA

Robert Kubica says the No. 83 AF Corse Ferrari crew has to consider its title battle against the works No. 51 car as both of the leading two crews in the FIA World Endurance Championship title race share the front row for the Lone Star Le Mans.

Ex-Formula 1 star Kubica came out on top in mixed conditions in qualifying at the Circuit of The Americas on Saturday in AF Corse’s third-string car, beating out his opposite number in the No. 51 Ferrari, Antonio Giovinazzi, by less than a tenth of a second.

The extra bonus point scored by the No. 83 car Kubica shares with Ye Yifei and Phil Hanson means the gap to the points-leading No. 51 Ferrari of Giovinazzi, James Calado and Alessandro Pier Guidi is down to 11 points ahead of Sunday’s race.

Kubica stressed the importance of the two-point swing in relation to the No. 51 as the championship battle approaches it climax, with two races to go after COTA.

“I expect the race will be a tough one on tire wear and degradation,” said Kubica.

“After [winning] Le Mans, we are P2 in the championship, and so we have to think about it. And scoring pole is not just one point, it’s also stopping the No. 51 scoring a point.

“I don’t want to think about it too much, but since Le Mans, it’s normal as a professional racing driver to think about the championship and we are in the battle. We have to take the opportunities and do our best.”

Looking back on his pole-winning effort in the ever-changing conditions, Kubica said that he had briefly considered the use of wet tires in the opening session but like the majority ultimately chose to endure on slicks as the rain eased.

The Polish driver reflected: “I don’t remember having such tricky conditions in a long time.

“It was tricky in terms of the grip level, the rain was moving around the track, changing corner-by-corner and then resetting after every lap, and especially the early stages of Hyperpole when the tires were not yet in a perfect window.

“There was a moment where I started questioning if we should use wet tires in the first session, but then the rain stopped and the track got better. It was on the edge.

“It started raining again in Hyperpole and the places where there was grip changed from before, and there was only one lap [to push for a time] before that.”

Despite the Ferrari 499P having an unfavorable Balance of Performance at COTA, with the joint-most weight in Hypercar with Toyota and the least horsepower, Kubica believes he would have been in the mix in qualifying even in dry conditions.

“[On Friday] I told some of the engineers that I would put it on pole, when we thought it would be dry, so I think we had the pace also in the dry,” he replied.

“But we had to take a completely different approach to what would in the dry. Instead of chasing the balance and extracting the maximum performance, it was all about reading the conditions and have a good feeling for the level of risk you could take.”

For his part, Giovinazzi couldn’t hide his disappointment at losing out on pole to Kubica by the slender margin of just 0.096 seconds, but believes he and his co-drivers are still going into Sunday’s six-hour race in a strong position.

“I am a little bit disappointed to lose pole by less than one tenth to our nearest competitor championship, but it is good for Ferrari to be P1 and P2,” said Giovinazzi.

“If the conditions are like this for the race, it will be a tough one for the strategy, to be on the right tires for the conditions.”

Asked about Ferrari’s competitiveness in the dry, the Italian driver added: “On Friday we showed our pace in the dry is quite good. We showed we our quite similar to Cadillac and Alpine, but I think we’re in a good position.

“To start at the front is good because there are long straights but at this track it is not easy to follow and it is difficult to overtake, so it is positive.”