Hard to overtake at Shanghai

For the BMW Sauber F1 Team and Robert Kubica, the Chinese GP represents the last of this year's back-to-back race weekends. The BMW Sauber F1 Team driver recalls his Shanghai debut in 2006 and describes the best overtaking opportunities at the 5.451-kilometre circuit.

In 2006, Robert was ninth on the starting grid and subsequently finished 13th. At the end of the day, a startline incident and an untimely pit stop prevented him from securing a better result.

"Last year's Chinese Grand Prix was pretty interesting for me," says Robert Kubica, "what with qualifying in the wet and then having a close encounter with Robert Doornbos at the start. I gained a lot of positions but then when the track was drying we made our change to dry weather tires too early."

The "Shanghai International Circuit" is popular with Robert although overtaking is difficult here – but this applies to many other Formula One circuits. Robert gives his impression of the venue of the 2007 season's penultimate round: "Quite a nice track and again, it features a very long straight. Maybe there is an overtaking opportunity at the end of the long back straight. It is very long but overtaking will be anything but easy, nevertheless. It is very difficult to follow a car very closely in the really fast right-hander, you have to corner right before entering the straight."