Formula One championship leader Robert Kubica agreed on Thursday that his rivals were right to treat him as no more than a long shot for the title.

"Looking and watching the situation of me and my team, I don't put me as well as a title contender," the Polish BMW-Sauber driver told a French Grand Prix news conference.

Ferrari's world champion Kimi Raikkonen said after Kubica won the previous Canadian Grand Prix that he was glad the victory went to the Pole rather than his own team mate Felipe Massa or McLaren's Lewis Hamilton.

"It was good for us that Kubica won in Canada," the Finn had said on his Web site (www.kimiraikkonen.com). "For our side, it was better that he got the 10 points but not my main rivals who are now just three points ahead of me.

Raikkonen failed to score in Canada, for the second race in a row, while Kubica's first win sent him four points clear of Massa and Hamilton and seven ahead of Raikkonen after seven rounds of the championship.

Asked whether he felt underestimated by Raikkonen, who plainly saw Massa and Hamilton as his main opponents, Kubica disagreed.

"Looking at the situation in the case of Kimi, I would worry more about Felipe and Lewis than myself," he said.

Kubica attributed his team's exceptional reliability as the key to his emergence at the top of the standings rather than outright speed.

The Pole's road to success in Montreal was cleared when Hamilton drove into the back of Raikkonen's stationary Ferrari in the pit lane while the world champion waited for a red light to change.

"In the end, normally the fastest driver and fastest car wins the title but sometimes it happens that in some seasons it is the most consistent driver," said Kubica.

"The only way we could achieve this position (leading the championship) is without doing mistakes, with good strategy and good reliability.

"The reliability for now is 100 percent perfect and the guys in the workshop have made a really big step forward in this direction."

Team boss Mario Theissen suggested Kubica might be being overly modest but added that he was happy for Ferrari and McLaren to see each other as the major opponent.

"From my perspective, it can continue like this throughout the season," the German told reporters with a smile. "We as a team and Robert as a driver have exceeded expectations so far, so the pressure is not on us."

BMW Sauber had set winning a race for the first time this year as their season's target and Theissen said the new objective was simply to keep performing to the maximum on a race-by-race basis.

"There is no additional pressure, just the opposite," he said. "But apparently the team is very motivated to achieve good results now."