Kubica happy with life at renault F1 team

Robert Kubica thinks the Renault Formula One team is "heading in the right direction" after its below-the-radar performance in winter testing.






Kubica said he already feels at home in his new team, which he joined for 2010 after leaving BMW Sauber at the end of last season.






While there are four obvious front-running teams, many observers say that Renault could be a strong package as the season progresses. The team spent a lot of time running race fuel loads and did not set any headline-grabbing lap times.






"I feel as ready as I can be considering that winter testing has been so limited," said Kubica. "I've spent a lot of time with the team and we already have a strong working relationship, which means we can make the most of the time at the track. There has been a lot for me to learn and there are still questions to answer, but we got some good information from the tests and I tried to extract the maximum from every lap.






"It's difficult to judge performance, but we're heading in the right direction. We also haven't run with all our new updates yet and there is another aero upgrade for [the first race in] Bahrain [next weekend], which we hope will match the wind-tunnel predictions and improve performance.






"Overall, it seems that all the top teams are quite close, but some have definitely hidden their full potential during testing and will also have more updates for Bahrain. So far, I think Ferrari and Mercedes look very strong."






Kubica said that Renault has to develop quickly, something it's been able to do often in the past.






"It will be a long season and our goal must be to develop faster than our competitors," he noted. "There was a big gap to make up at the end of 2009, so we will have to take two steps forward if we want to catch the top teams. Performance is what we need; it's always the best medicine."