Kubica: Rivals making life harder now

The Pole scored his and his team's maiden win at the Canadian Grand Prix, but since then the German squad have seen rivals Ferrari and McLaren edge away in terms of performance.

Red Bull, Renault and Toyota also seem to have closed the gap on BMW, who endured their worst qualifying performance of the season on Saturday, with Kubica in seventh and teammate Nick Heidfeld in 12th.

Kubica says the improved pace of their rivals is making things harder for his team, although he admits he is not having problems coping with being unable to fight for victory.

"It's not difficult," said Kubica. "We won in Canada, but there we were also six tenths slower than pole in qualifying.

"The problem now is that as I said it's not only Ferrari and McLaren who are quicker, but sometimes Toyota and Renault get in front of us which complicates our life. But this is racing and I think we have to try to improve."

He added: "In Canada we had a lot of luck - we are similar here. In Magny-Cours we were more off, in Silverstone unfortunately I couldn't do any laps in Q3 but we were stronger there than we expected, maybe also helped by weather.

"It's true that the gap to Ferrari and McLaren is bigger than for example in the early part of the season."

Kubica is just two points behind the championship leaders with nine races to go, but the Pole reckons it will be hard to stay in the fight.

"In the end I hope to arrive at the last race still in with a chance of the fight," he said. "But for now it will be difficult. If that situation keeps on for longer we are not in the position to fight with Ferrari and McLaren so we have to wait and see."