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Renault podiums unlikely - Kubica

ESPNF1 Staff
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Robert Kubica is putting his faith in upgrades to the Renault © Sutton Images
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Robert Kubica is not holding high hopes of fighting for the podium at the first race of the season in Bahrain.

He didn't rule out the possibility of mixing it with the front runners, but said it would be entirely dependent on the success of an upgrade for the R30, set to be introduced on Sunday.

"We will try to be in the position to fight for the top, but I think it could be difficult to achieve, especially at the beginning of the year," Kubica said. "We hope for a good start, we hope to be competitive straight away. Of course we have to be realistic, so we will not go to Bahrain to fight for the podium, that's for sure. But maybe we will have a nice surprise here on Sunday with the new upgrades and we will be able to fight for it."

Kubica said Renault was taking a few risks with the development of the car in order to close the gap to the fastest teams.

"We discovered last week that by changing something it would give us an advantage, and I think that's the right approach and there will be no problems in Bahrain," he said. "It's risky, but I think the team feels quite confident that the correlation between the windtunnel and on the track is very good, so I have no reason to not believe it.

"We just hope that the new package and new pieces will give us the advantage which we are predicting, and we hope that the other teams don't have many things to put on. Of course they will have - some teams might have already put something on here, maybe some others have not, but we will see in Bahrain in the end."

Kubica will test the updates to the Renault on Sunday, the final day of pre-season testing.

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