Vettel welcomes Kubica back as Pole impresses in official test drive FORMULA ONE

Robert Kubica made his first official Formula One outing in more than six years yesterday as the Pole took another major step on his comeback trail.

Kubica, 32, managed 74 laps – more than any other driver at the Hungaroring – and posted the seventh-fastest time in his first taste of this year’s Renault.

He partially severed his right arm in a rallying crash back in 2011 that brought a sudden halt to a grand prix career which had seem him earmarked as future champion.

But Kubica appeared to show no ill-effects of the injury on his first official test in an F1 car for 2,372 days, as he posted a credible time of one minute and 19.681 seconds. His time was 2.6secs adrift of Sebastian Vettel, who was fastest for Ferrari.

“It’s great for him to be back,” said Vettel, who leads Lewis Hamilton by 14 points in the championship race. “There was never a doubt about his talent, his speed and his ability to drive the car.

“The cars are different this year, which should fit his style. I hope that he will have fun.”

Kubica’s day got off to a shaky start after he brushed Renault’s garage wall with his right rear tyre as he left the pits. The force of the impact dislodged a sign displaying Renault driver Nico Hulkenberg’s name above the garage, but after a small pause, Kubica continued.

His banker lap was around six seconds off the pace, but his times began to tumble as the morning wore on, and his best effort was just 1.2secs slower than Renault driver Jolyon Palmer’s qualifying lap for the Hungarian Grand Prix.

It is probable that Kubica will also have been carrying more fuel, and thus a heavier car, than Britain’s Palmer. He completed 115 laps at a private test in Valencia in June before a further trial last month in which he managed 90 laps of the Paul Ricard circuit in France.

But today’s outing marked his first behind the wheel of this year’s faster and more demanding generation of grand prix cars, and a sterner test of the mobility in his right arm.

Kubica was cheered on by a large army of Polish supporters who chanted his name throughout the morning running on the concluding day of this week’s test.

He made 76 grands prix starts and finished on the podium 12 times. He also won the 2008 Canadian GP.

Nico Hulkenberg is set to be retained by Renault next year, but the future of Palmer is uncertain after his failure to score a point this season. Renault may even be tempted to put Kubica in their car in Palmer’s place after the summer break.

Kubica later took his tally to 142 laps – the equivalent of more than two race distances at the Hungaroring – and improved his time by four-tenths to finish fourth in the order.