Kubica under no illusions for France

The BMW Sauber driver scored his and his team's maiden victory at Montreal to take the lead in the championship after rivals Lewis Hamilton and Kimi Raikkonen were involved in an accident and retired.

The Pole, however, admits there were a lot of circumstances that played in his favour in Canada, and he reckons it will be hard to match their rivals in Magny-Cours.

"Lately it's quite difficult," said Kubica when asked about the possibility of challenging Ferrari and McLaren in France.

"In Canada, in qualifying I think we were helped a bit by the track conditions, the tarmac was breaking up and the conditions were completely different than in free practice.

"I managed to do quite a quick, clean lap, and managed to put the car on the front row, but looking at free practice, looking at Monaco, at Turkey, the gap is quite big, so we have to try our best and with a ten-place penalty for Lewis we will try to score as many points as possible and we will try to do our best."

Despite his position in the championship, Kubica is adamant his team must keep their feet on the ground and keep making progress to catch Ferrari and McLaren.

"Well, I think everybody knows the reaction because they could see it," he said of the reaction to his victory. "In the end, we came back to Europe, we went testing in Barcelona.

"I was testing for the first two days, Nick was testing on the last day, trying to improve the car, preparing for the next Grands Prix and in the end it was a very good weekend for us in Canada.

"But we have to keep our feet on the ground and keep working, keep pushing because we know there is a gap to the Ferraris and McLarens and we need to make bigger steps to close it and we will try our best."