Kubica planned late charge

[davewilson]

Robert Kubica has revealed that he planned to mount his main attack on the Australian Grand Prix podium in the final stages of the 58-lap race, only to be denied by a reoccurrence of BMW Sauber's pre-season reliability woes.

While the F1.07 again proved to be among the fastest cars on track at Albert Park, the lack of reliability that hampered its pre-season preparation reared its head on lap 37, sending Kubica crawling back to the pits with gearbox problems.

The Pole had made a good start to hold fifth position off the grid, and then moved up to fourth when his early race strategy proved better than team-mate Nick Heidfeld's, the German sliding from second to fifth during the first round of pit-stops after picking to use the softer option tyre in the opening laps. Kubica was due to run the tyre options in reverse, saving the softer rubber for the end of the race, when he planned to make his move.

"I was much heavier than Nick and was still able to match his speed," he lamented, "My strategy was to attack towards the end of the race - my last stint was going to be very short, so I would have had even better performance then but, unfortunately, I didn't get that far."

Although he made it back to the garage, the BMW engineers were unable to fix the problem, leaving Kubica a frustrated spectator as Heidfeld went on to claim a lonely fourth place behind Kimi Raikkonen, Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton.

"I was stuck in fifth gear and that was the end of my race," the Pole sighed, "The only good thing is we know what the problem is and we now have to resolve it."

The Stig