Kubica encouraged by change of feeling in FW42
By Andrew Hooper
April 12 2019
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Kubica
encouraged by change of feeling in FW42 |
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The races leading up to the 2019
Chinese Grand Prix had seen ROKiT Williams Racing driver Robert Kubica
suffer the frustrations of not only having a car that was not performing but
also a car that compared to his team-mates car was producing quite different
results in terms of the data coming from the car.
But after having completed the
two Friday practice sessions Robert has finally been able to confirm that he
is encouraged by a car that now has a "different" feeling.
The data that was coming from
both the teams cars showed that there was a discrepancy between the cars
showing an 8 per cent difference in aero balance front to rear under braking
despite the two cars having the same settings. In braking this was seeing
the aero balance on Robert's car moving further forwards than that which
occurred on Russell’s. This would make Robert's car suffer from more
oversteer from the initial turn-in and apex.
As for what could be the cause
of this it could come down to a difference in torsional stiffness in the two
chassis. The team has still yet to resolve this issue but it would see that
they are making some progress as Robert's response was more favourable.
The two Friday sessions would
see Robert finish ahead of his team-mate but was even more encouraging was
the fact that the changes that had been made to the FW42 during the sessions
have produced the result of changing the handling.
Robert would comment on this by saying: “The car feels a bit different to
last two weekends, so that's a good sign. Now we have to see the data, what
to do, as the balance is quite different to the previous two events.”
He added: “We just did some changes just to understand and it's not that we
have some improvement. It's just something we changed in the characteristics
of the car and it seems like it's responding differently.
“Of course on this track you have quite a lot of understeer so understeer is
kind of a killer here, so we have to wait and see.”
AS for whether this was going to see improvements from the FW42 Robert
added: “If we haven't done anything to turn it around in the last two
months, there'll be nothing happening in 12 hours,” he said.
But team-mate George felt that the updates that had been bought to Shanghai
had moved the team a bit closer to the cars ahead.
George said: “Yeah, I think there were a few positives. I think the long run
pace was fairly decent compared to Racing Point. We definitely as a team
seem closer, so again that's positive and all going in the right direction.”
Asked where the improvements were coming, the updates or simply the drivers
improving George replied: “We've got a couple of little new bits. I'd
probably say it's a bit of both. Everybody is understanding the car, but I
think we probably didn't optimise it as much as everybody else in the
previous two races. So I think we are just getting more out of it.” |
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