INTERVIEW: Robert Kubica on his F1 comeback and finding “fresh air” in endurance racing

In 2021, Kubica won the LMP2 Championship of the European Le Mans Series. Two years later, he captured the LMP2 Title in the World Endurance Championship, before repeating his ELMS success last year.

This year, the 40-year-old has stepped up to WEC's Hypercar class with AF Corse, the 'sister' team to Ferrari's works outfit, running the same 499P machinery alongside team-mates Englishman Phil Hanson and China's Yifei Ye.

The season started brightly for the trio as they finished runner-up in the Qatar 1,812km in February, followed by fourth in the 6 Hours of Imola in April, only for mechanical issues to blight their chances in the 6 Hours of Spa in which they were 15^th in class, 39 laps behind the winners.

Next is the 24 Hours of Le Mans on 14^th-15^th June, the classic endurance event in which Kubica has twice finished second in the LMP2 class in 2022 and 2023. It is all a far cry from the relatively dark days of his battle to re-establish himself as a motorsport figure of significance after the incident in the Ronde di Andorra rally in Italy in February 2011, when a new F1 season was just around the corner.

After just over three seasons with BMW, during which time he won the 2008 Canadian Grand Prix, a result that saw him head the drivers' standings, and a year with Renault, Kubica's life was shattered when he smashed into a barrier driving a Super-2000 specification Skoda Fabia.

That Kubica returned to rallying in 2013 and won that year's WRC2 category is truly remarkable, but his dream of a return to F1 was always just out of reach for many years due to the limitation in movement of his right hand and forearm.

It was not until 2019 that Williams took a gamble on the Polish driver, but it was a miserable season in which he scored just a solitary point, and only then, after two disqualifications ahead of him that led to a promotion in the classification.

Although then a reserve driver with Alfa Romeo for three years, Kubica knew he had to seek a new pasture in motorsport, leading him to endurance racing. Despite his successes, he has continued to consider his options.

"I have to be honest, over the last four years there have been moments where I thought that maybe it's time for me to find new challenges," said Kubica.

"It's not that I don't love racing, and I don't like to race, but I just thought, I'm getting close to 40, which I am now, and probably because I was not super happy with where I was. When you get older, you have some brainstorming moments.

"When I was combining the reserve driver role, together with racing, yes, I was close to Formula 1, and I was in the Formula 1 paddock, which I always liked. But being close to a Formula 1 team, it's the highest level of motorsport you can get.”

"Probably I was doing too much, so I thought it was maybe time to stop, to find some new challenges, as I say. In the end, I knew if I stopped, I would miss racing, so I kept going. What endurance racing has given me is fresh air.”

There is an argument to suggest that Kubica should have thrown in the towel earlier on his F1 ambitions and pursued other avenues sooner. Not for a second did the thought cross his mind and, in particular, why he additionally pursued rallying initially when, for many, they would have turned their back completely.

"My first adventure, let's say, in Formula 1 from 2006 to 2011 gave me a lot, and was interrupted by my accident," said Kubica. "I had this image of Formula 1, which in the end was my life. Not a lot of people understood, when I returned to racing, why rallies. It was simply because I wanted to give myself a big challenge, the same level as F1.

"It's very challenging for someone who has never done rallies to go from circuit racing to rallies. Rallying kept my head very busy, and I had to test myself, to not have these remarks that were linked to my past.

"When the rallying went as well as it did, I felt like a racing driver again. Then I wanted to return to the highest category possible. It had nothing to do with the possibilities. I wanted to see what I could do, to see how competitive I could be. I didn’t want to just be a number.”

When Kubica returned to F1 with Williams six years ago, there was an obvious feeling of being back where he felt he belonged. The fact that the team's depressing decline had started the previous year sadly overshadowed his achievements.

"That year was very disappointing," said Kubica. "It was a tough one, not only for myself but for a lot of people within the team. It was still special, although one that should have been very different, because nobody gave me a chance, but I worked hard for it, and I never would have done it if I had not felt able to be competitive.

"When I look back now, my Formula 1 comeback was one of my biggest, if not the biggest, achievement of my life."

An additionally disappointing year in DTM followed in 2020 before Kubica turned his attention to endurance racing, where he has finally found a home. On his debut ELMS outing with Team WRT in an Oreca 07 Gibson, Kubica stood atop a podium again for the first time in seven years since winning the opening round of the European Rally Championship, the Internationale Jänner Rallye, in Austria in 2014.

“I never doubted my possibilities,” said Kubica. "Of course, you race for results, to bring home a trophy. I have the approach of going into a weekend, trying to extract the maximum from myself.

"That year [2021] was very positive, a year which injected into me some new emotions, new vibes, a new category to discover. I was 36 at the time, and it took me back to my days in karting, when everything was like discovering something new. It was something special.”

"That's why I like endurance racing. It's something different to Formula 1. Ultimately, the DNA is the same because you have to bring the car home as fast as possible. Of course, you are sharing the car, so the approach with your team-mates has to be different. You have to have different skills as a driver compared to Formula 1.

“For example, you have to think as a group. My age probably helps me in that approach. It’s not about being as fast as possible on every lap. I can sacrifice myself for the group.”

Kubica is enjoying breathing that aforementioned "fresh air.” It has given new meaning and purpose to his life, and far from considering quitting – as had crossed his mind in the past, he is pleasantly uncertain as to what the future may hold.

As he noted, his accident in 2011 taught him "not to plan too far forward." Right now, he is living for the moment and whatever successes and disappointments may come his way.

“Although the work is very tough and the competition very high, I still have a lot of passion for the sport," he said. "It has become a lifestyle. I don’t know what will happen in the future, but I know one thing for certain, and that is whilst I’m enjoying what I am doing, and as long as I’m healthy and capable, I will continue.

"I will never go to a race and see it as work. One of the biggest things in my life is that my passion, my hobby from the beginning, since I was a little kid, became my work.

"This is something unique, something that life has given me, something I appreciate a lot because I can't think of anything better than your passion becoming your work, and you still keep going."

Images courtesy of Getty Images.