Robert Kubica: Doesn't Formula 1 miss him?

Robert Kubica, Canadian Grand Prix 2008

It’s been a long 19 months since Robert Kubica encountered that horrific rally accident in Italy driving a Skoda Fabia that left him with multiple fractures in his hands and legs. Things have moved on since then, he seems to have fully recovered from the injuries he suffered which were initially feared to be career threatening, if not life threatening. It obviously has had a huge impact on his Formula 1 career but the good news is that he is back doing what he does best and for one, he does not seem to have been deterred by the accident when he chose rallying for his comeback.

There have been reports that he has been doing pretty well in his limited rallying stints and he already has a couple of wins under his belt. If that is anything to go by, he is certainly headed in the right direction after what would have been an agonizing wait to get back to competitive racing. Apparently, Kubica has had a similar scare that threatened to end his career before it even started when in 2003, he met with serious a road accident as a passenger, leaving behind titanium bolts in his arm after an operation. But obviously he did not let it have much of an influence on his career and once he got that deserved breakthrough into Formula 1, there was no looking back for him.

He is one those drivers who is capable of churning out consistent results even with an under-performing car under him, something he made quite evident early in his Formula 1 career with BMW in 2006 after being promoted to a race seat, replacing Jacques Villeneuve for the remaining six races of the season. He was on the mark right from the onset with his impressive qualifying outings giving us a much better idea of how good the BMW was after he came on. He eventually ended the season with a point lesser than Villeneuve’s tally which included a podium in the Italian Grand Prix. His drive in Italy was probably the first time I took note of the sheer race pace the guy had and you sort of knew that this guy was here to stay. Another of the highlights of his career would probably be his miraculous escape after his huge shunt in the 2007 Canadian Grand Prix. He had to miss the next Grand Prix, but when you have half your leg popping out of the monocoque after a high speed crash, only a lucky guy would expect himself to be back racing within a month, and lucky he was then.

But what is ironic is the fact that the next time he came back to Canada, he defied all odds to give his team and himself a first Formula 1 victory, a victory which meant he would find himself leading the points tally seven races into the championship. It was in 2008 that you really saw Kubica come to the fore and his consistency paid dividends as he remained a dark horse for the title through until the penultimate race. Though BMW was right up there with Ferrari and McLaren in the first half of the season, their pace started dropping once we entered the business end of the championship, which had a huge impact on Kubica’s title hopes. You would have expected BMW to push to the line, considering the fantastic start to the season they had, but it was quite clear that they had given up on the development of their car to concentrate on next year’s car. While Massa and Hamilton lost points regularly, Kubica consistently chipped in with regular points finishes and got the odd podium to keep himself in the title race. BMW’s decision to cease the development in the middle of the season to concentrate on the ‘KERS powered’ 2009 car eventually turned out to be a big blunder after a disastrous season finally led to their exit from the sport.

In hindsight, had BMW played their part in Kubica’s title bid by continuing with their development work, who knows we might have had a three-way showdown to the title in ’08. BMW’s decision to back off in the middle of the season certainly did not go down well with the Pole himself, something he made clear in an interview later in 2009:”I don’t think there was a lot to discuss. Of course we had meetings reviewing last season, but I will concentrate on this year. Sometimes it’s very difficult to accept some situations but everybody has different views, so I will accept it.“

He has been one of those drivers who has always managed to stay out of the controversies and concentrate solely on his business of driving, and driving fast. The sad bit is the fact that he finds himself in a situation wherein he is struggling to find a Formula 1 drive. If his performances in rallying are anything to go by, he certainly doesn’t seem to have lost that touch he once had, which will certainly impress the likes of Ferrari who had earlier shown keen interest in signing him on before his accident. But realistically, there is a long way to go before we see Robert back in Formula 1, but all we can hope for is a speedy comeback to F1. And we know he is no stranger to comebacks.