Robert Kubica is making a comeback from a supposedly career-ending accident. But should he?

HERE’S A FUN CHALLENGE: TRY DRIVING ONEhanded. If you drive a manual this experiment will be as short-lived as it is stupid. (It’s stupid whatever you drive and is not to be done seriously anyway, but you’re smart enough to know that already.) However, if your car has an automatic transmission of some sort, it is at least possible. Now, if you’re right-handed, use your left hand. Go to your favourite B-road and try to be precise, at the speed limit and in control, through corners with a bit of loading. And when you’re through the corner, use that hand to go into the system menu and change the language to Greek. Pretty hard, isn’t it? By now, presuming you haven’t ended up in a hedgerow, put your other hand back on the wheel and spend the rest of your journey considering how much tougher this would be if you were driving a Formula 1 car.

That’s the task facing Robert Kubica as he attempts an F1 comeback nobody thought was possible. Even his insurance company had paid out: they concluded the injuries Robert sustained in a rally accident in 2011 were undoubtedly career-ending.

But they weren’t. Through sheer bloody-minded determination, while ignoring physical pain and requiring copious emotional grit and frankly, balls, Kubica is back. The Pole has got to the point where he was able to drive the current Williams-mercedes FW40 at the post-season test in Abu Dhabi to within split seconds of its ablebodied drivers who’d had a whole year’s worth of experience with the car.

Overcoming a physical limitation is tough for anyone – as Frank Williams himself knows well – but what Kubica has achieved so far, and the progress he’s made as his body and brain relearn how to drive with his limitations, is astonishing given everything else he’s had to deal with in daily life. Robert’s right arm and hand are pretty much immobile and his right leg and hip are still not at full strength following multiple operations.

Despite this, at the recent Autosport Awards, Kubica looked in great shape. If I’m honest, he appeared older than his 32 years – a few more grey hairs on the temples, a few fewer hairs altogether up top. But the sparkle in the eye was still there. On stage he talked of how he was in better shape physically than in 2010. ‘I have to work much harder now – I was a lazy guy in the past,’ he half-joked, adding that 90 per cent of his driving ability is just as it was in 2010.

What’s happened to that last 10 per cent is, of course, the clincher. At the test, Robert lapped to within nine-tenths of a second of Felipe Massa’s best effort in qualifying. Impressive, one would have thought, given he’s not yet back up to speed and how unfamiliar he was with the 2017 Williams. But since then Kubica’s lap times have been picked over by journalists sucking their teeth at data that appears to show that he’s not as good as he used to be. Hello? He’s only got one useable arm, for Pete’s sake. Come on…

Although that does lead to the valid question of whether the whole thing is a good idea at all. Just because Robert Kubica can come back doesn’t necessarily mean he should. He will have to work hard to prove himself up to the job in pressure environments, have to satisfy fellow drivers he’ll be able to control his car in all weather conditions so that he won’t be a danger to them, and also convince himself any further accident wouldn’t pose additional risks to his health. All tough to do.

But if he wants to come back and Williams are happy to have him, why shouldn’t he try? Kubica’s isn’t just a great story because it’s unprecedented in Formula 1; for Robert, a return to racing would grant a second chance at his life’s purpose – putting right the tragedy of a career cut short before its time. So what if he’s a tenth or two off? It might cost him a place in qualifying but there’ll be nobody better in a crazy race where experience can win a Grand Prix. Let’s face it, Williams are not going to be quick enough to win races on merit so you might as well have a smart driver on board as well as one with an amazing story to wow the sponsors.

On balance, then, you’d have to say it’s worth it. It’s not as if some mediocre driver was attempting a comeback: Kubica was (is?) world champion-level quality. If he secures the Williams drive, great. But if he gets this close only to fail? That would be just as tragic as what happened seven years ago on the Ronde di Andora.

‘Kubica’s isn’t just a great story because it’s unprecedented in F1; a return to racing would grant him a second chance at his life’s purpose’