By Joey Barnes, Editor-in-Chief
Robert Kubica made his official return to a Formula 1 race weekend for the first time since 2010, ending 19th quickest in Friday morning practice ahead of the Spanish Grand Prix.
The outing at was less than ideal as Kubica was 3.362 seconds off the pace, but still managed to place ahead of Williams teammate Lance Stroll by 1.246 seconds at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. Stroll also crashed with half an hour to go the session.
Overall, the first of three scheduled opening practice sessions for 2018 was less than ideal, but still came away with a positive outlook.
“It is a good feeling – not so much from being in the car but from before that, because I’m back driving in an official session, even if it’s only FP1,” said Kubica.
“It’s the first time since the end of 2010 so there’s some emotion, but this disappeared very soon as we have quite a difficult car to drive. The balance was quite off, but somehow we have to stick to what we’ve got to complete our aero tests and evaluations. It wasn’t an easy session, but we managed in difficult conditions and I was able to give some good feedback.
“When you’re struggling so much it’s difficult to enjoy it, but still I’m happy because I think the most difficult car we’ve had was in this session and I managed to stay cool, and somehow extract what I thought was a reasonable level of performance.
“I think I can be happy as I did what I was asked to do.”
