The two stories of Robert Kubica
Robert Kubica’s return to F1 may not have ended as many in the sport had hoped, but it is still a remarkable story of his determinaton, willpower and talent
There were two Robert Kubicas in Formula 1 in 2019. One was the underachiever, obliterated by rookie team-mate George Russell, regularly hinting at dark forces working against him. The other was the sensational comeback story after an injury that left his right arm and hand permanently damaged, and a repair and rehabilitation process that took more out of Kubica than most of us can ever know.
One story is a tragedy, a once-great driver returning as a ghost of his former self; the other is a triumph of human spirit. It’s the second story that really matters and will long live in the memory. Forget the details, the lap times, the results: this was a victory for Kubica – the biggest of his career.
“I was kind of split,” says Kubica when asked how he sees it. “By coming back to Formula 1 I closed a chapter, which was probably the most important one of my life looking at the period I went through with the injuries and the consequences of the [rally] accident in 2011. Then you reopen the chapter of Formula 1, which is a difficult one to talk about because the season has been very complicated and definitely not the one we all wished for at Williams.
“On the other hand, if you think where I was, what I went through and how far away F1 was – realistically it was nearly impossible – it’s still a good achievement. But you live to achieve, and coming back you want to do good races and to deliver.”
Kubica consistently, and justifiably, complained that his comeback involved very little actual racing. With the Williams package usually marooned off the back of the midfield, the only rival he usually had to battle with was his team-mate. The numbers there have been emphatic, with Russell qualifying ahead on all 21 occasions with an adjusted average advantage of 0.575 seconds and Kubica only finishing ahead twice. But one of those was at Hockenheim, where he picked up the sole point of the season for Williams.
There were a few flashes of the old Kubica. Once settled in, his starts and decisions in the cut and thrust of the early seconds of the race were generally excellent and he finished the first lap ahead of Russell 11 times. He also showed he could keep his faster team-mate behind for surprisingly long periods and pulled a great pass after losing position to him in the pitstops in Mexico. But overall he was simply not on the pace. The car was certainly uncompetitive and his eight seasons away from F1 didn’t help, but overall it’s impossible to escape the conclusion that what Kubica calls his “limitation” is an impediment to delivering the level of performances his remarkable early F1 career produced.
Kubica is a racer, so is driven to compete, and given his former level in F1 there’s every chance he can recapture his old magic in other categories. He describes himself as driving 70% left-handed, but watching the way the right hand operates from onboard cameras that seems a generous description. For example, when he crashed during FP2 in Brazil – resulting in a second car rebuild around the spare chassis in just four race weekends – there’s a point where the right hand parts company with the wheel as he frantically tries to save it long before the point he releases the wheel to avoid injury. It’s not the reason he lost it in the first place, and by then it was probably beyond saving, but it was telling.
Asked to explain his performances, Kubica points to car problems, unexplained losses of grip, and there have even been
“There were flashes of the old Kubica in his starts and decisions in the early seconds of a race”
subtle hints of power shortfalls. There were times when he appeared to be struggling with the capricious Pirelli rubber, although he describes that as “a cheap excuse”. The wider problems certainly didn’t help him – the late start, the slow car and what he often described as inconsistency in terms of grip and balance from session to session – and it’s clear that because of this he doesn’t feel he had a fair shot. And it’s difficult to zero in on a consistent pattern of time loss by corner type that might point to his weaknesses.
“I have my opinions on many areas where I could do better, but I was not helped as well,” he says. “It was extremely important for me to start the season with a good consistency so I could build up my comeback on this. Unfortunately, this didn’t happen. Then there were occasions where I could perform and I did perform well, but they were hidden with some external factors. There were occasions where I definitely could’ve done better, and there were occasions where I didn’t hear any answer and had no idea why we were so underperforming from day to day.
“This is something which is worse because in order to improve you need to understand the reasons and know the areas where you want to improve. There’s no point of having a medicine which is not curing your illness. You have to understand the reasons and this is something which I think this year was very confusing.”
For Williams, which saw Kubica’s return as a great feelgood story that came with sponsorship thought to be about €12million, running him has not proved to be the happiest of experiences.
“The tenacity that Robert showed to get back into F1 was quite extraordinary,” says deputy team principal Claire Williams. “He had this dream and Williams gave him the opportunity to fulfil that dream. I’m pleased that I can say we did that. I don’t think it’s quite worked out as he would have liked it to have done. There’s been a lot of commentary about why that may be but we have always given equal equipment to our drivers.”
Other than by necessity – such as when accident damage restricted parts, notably when he was forced to retire a healthy car in Russia amid a parts crisis – that was true, although there were occasions when tired parts were in circulation owing to a shortage. A Melbourne coin toss also set the pattern for the ‘priority’ driver – for example, dictating who got the prime qualifying timings –
“Kubica still had something to offer – he was a galvanising force for a team that had a lot of soul-searching to do”
which then alternated race by race, with Russell going first. The regular hints that he was not facing a fair fight were frustrating, but they were perhaps understandable for a driver who was trying to come to terms with his own level.
While his performances overall have been disappointing, he still had something to offer. There are those in the team frustrated by the hints about unequal machinery – which started with readings that suggested a problem that came from miscalibrated sensors measuring the load on the front axle – but he was a galvanising force for a team that had a lot of soul-searching to do.
“It’s been tough for him in terms of results and the pace deficit to George,” says principal engineer Dave Robson. “But when you work with him you can see why he was so highly rated the first time he was in F1. In terms of guiding things, knowing what a good racing outfit looks like and his contribution to all of that is huge, so he’s done a much better job than people perhaps think. It’s frustrating for all of us that we haven’t seen him in a quicker car to really see what he can do, but his overall contribution is significant.”
But these details miss the real point. When Kubica sat trapped in his Skoda Fabia on 6 February 2011 after the barrier had sliced through the engine bay of the car, into the passenger compartment and through his right arm and leg, there seemed no hope of a return to F1. Since then he’s endured more than 40 surgeries and who knows what psychological challenges. For a man driven by competition, he had to do everything he could to get back, no matter what pain and discomfort it caused. He’s achieved the impossible and performed creditably. Asking him if it was worth it elicits a telling answer.
“I will not say it was worth it or not, I did what I wished to do,” says Kubica. “I’m a person who lives for challenges, for trying to achieve the targets and trying to achieve what is your path. If I arrive in F1 after many years being away, it means that this was my objective. I did want to try to see if I was able to drive and I am able to be back although I have been away for a long time and I have limitations. In the end, if I have to answer if it was worth it, I say yes.
“Then, if we turn this upside down and say are you satisfied with what we achieved, of course we cannot be satisfied. No one is happy about the outcome of the season, but this is a part of the game, you don’t have control. It has been very difficult, but I still think I get some positive answers of this year.”
Kubica’s season has been different to that of anyone else on the grid. That’s why we have to separate the performances, unremarkable in isolation, from the bigger picture. What Kubica achieved this year was remarkable. He did the impossible and, even if he never races an F1 car again, which is likely despite Racing Point’s interest in his services as a simulator driver, that makes him a winner. To drive as well as he did, with limited movement, strength and dexterity in his right hand and his elbow restricted, beggars belief. Despite all of that, he was able to perform creditably among the best in the world.
What he achieved is testament to the determination, the single-minded focus that might once have made him world champion. That is what matters.