Two weeks after winning the Canadian Grand Prix to take over as leader of this year's drivers world championship, Poland's Robert Kubica on Saturday shrugged off taking only sixth place on the grid for Sunday's French Grand Prix.
The 23-year-old BMW Sauber driver, who delivered the team's maiden victory in Montreal on a track where he was almost killed 12 months previously, said he knew the Magny-Cours track would not be kind to him.
'In Canada, in qualifying, we were helped by the condition of the track, which helped us a lot,' said Kubica.
'But here we were struggling and I was expecting a difficult qualifying. And it was difficult.'
He added that he was under no illusion that the BMW F108 has not been the fastest car this season and said he foresaw a similar performance in France to those at recent races.
'We have not enough pace,' he said. 'We have to point out that we won (in Canada) because others made mistakes and had problems.'
'In Canada and Monaco we were five-six tenths off (the front-runners), and here is a bit similar. We are struggling a bit more here - so maybe other teams improved and we haven't.'
Kubica will start sixth on the grid with team-mate German Nick Heidfeld 11th after their team's most unconvincing performance of the season.
'Last year we were strong here, this year looks the opposite,' he added.
'But that is racing. We saw already yesterday that we were struggling with no grip and it looked like we couldn't fix it.'
