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Kubica pinning hopes on F-duct

Robet Kubica is looking froward to running an F-duct © Sutton Images

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• News:
• Renault drivers happy with F-duct performance
  
• News:
• Renault set to run F-duct in Belgium
  

• Drivers:
• Robert Kubica
• |
• Vitaly Petrov

• Teams:
• Renault

Robert Kubica is hoping for instant gains from the introduction of an F-duct on his Renault at the Belgian Grand Prix.

Renault is one of the last established teams to introduce the system - outlawed next season - that allows the driver to stall the rear wing, reduce drag and increase top speed on the straights.

Spa Francorchamps features both long straights and fast corners, which rewards a car that has a high top speed but also stability in the sweeping bends. Kubica is hoping the new F-duct will allow the team to find the best possible trade off between downforce and drag.

"We will be running the F-duct for the first time this weekend, and we hope it will work straight away so that we have as much practice time as possible to extract the maximum performance from this system," he said.

"We have seen a tendency for cars running the F-duct to use higher downforce levels than normal, because they can stall the rear wing and still generate good top speed. I think that will change the approach to Spa, too, because teams will be able to run quite a lot of downforce and still achieve good top speed. Although this is a circuit we all like driving on, it's still a track where car performance is very important."

He added that Renault still had its sights set on closing the gap to the front runners before the end of the season.

"It will be a tough end to the season, because we have just two more races in Europe followed by some long trips to Asia, South America and the Middle East," he said. "I've been out of luck in the last three races, with no points in Silverstone or Budapest, so I would like to get back to how we were racing earlier in the year: scoring regular points and fighting for good positions. I think the target for myself and the whole team will be to close the gap to the top teams during these races."

After his strongest finish of the season at the Hungarian Grand Prix, Vitlay Petrov is hoping to build on his good result.

"Anything is possible," he said. "If everything comes together: me, the car, and the team, the results will come as well. But we still have to wait and see how the F-duct works in free practice and how the car behaves in the high-speed corners. We know our car is already quite stable in the fast corners, but it's difficult to match the Red Bulls and the Ferraris. So it's difficult to know what to expect, but we will try our best."

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