CELEBRATING ROBERT KUBICA: FROM FORMULA 1 STAR TO ENDURANCE RACING LEGEND

On Sunday, September 1, the No. 83 customer Ferrari piloted by Robert Shwartzman crossed the finish line at Circuit of the Americas to take victory during the World Endurance Championship’s revitalized Lone Star Le Mans. It was an excellent win for the team — and an even more incredible win for Robert Kubica.

Kubica, a former Formula 1 driver turned endurance racing star, made history by becoming only the third F1 driver to also win a WEC race — a feat achieved only previously by Mark Webber and Fernando Alonso. Today, we celebrate Robert Kubica.

Robert Kubica: Poland’s motorsport hero

Born on December 7, 1984 in Krakow, Poland, Robert Kubica first fell in love with motorsport when, at age 4, he fell in love with a tiny off-road race car that made a mere four brake horsepower. Kubica’s family bought him that car — and before long, the young aspiring competitor was winning six go-kart titles in the span of just three years.

In 2000, Kubica began his professional racing career by first testing and then racing a Formula Renault 2000 car — and his impressive performance in the machinery saw Renault sign him to its development driver program.

But a shadow had already seemed to follow Kubica. In 2003, he was signed to compete in the Formula 3 Euro Series with Prema when a road accident delayed his debut.

That accident left him with a broken arm that had been repaired with 18 titanium screws. He debuted in the series halfway through the year wearing a plastic brace — and won at his return at the Norisring.

In 2006, Kubica made his debut in Formula 1 with the BMW Sauber team, where he initially served as a test driver before replacing an ailing Jacques Villeneuve partway through the year. In his second full F1 season, he took his first and only Grand Prix victory in Canada.

Sadly, in 2011, Kubica suffered a nasty crash in the first stage of the Ronde di Andora rally. He was trapped in his Skoda Fabia for more than an hour before rescue crews extracted the Polish racer, and it became quickly clear that Kubica’s injuries were intense.

He had struck a crash barrier that penetrated the cockpit, resulting in a partial amputation of his forearm, compound fractures to his elbow, shoulder, and leg, and a severe loss of blood. He was lucky to survive multiple surgeries and was released from the hospital in late April, almost three months after initially crashing.

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A lesser driver may have determined that such a crash was a sign to retire — but not Kubica. In fact, it was only the start of his impressively diverse racing career.

In late 2012, Kubica dipped his toe in the water by competing in the Ronde Gomitolo Di Lana rally — and he won.

It was the start of a frankly dominant era for Kubica. Though his World Rally Championship results weren’t always the greatest, he took the WRC2 title in 2013 by winning five rallies, placing second once, and taking a sixth place — all while missing out on competing in six events!

Kubica maintained an impressive rally career until 2017, when Renault and Williams began organizing tests for the racer behind the wheel of older F1 machinery. He joined Williams as a reserve driver in 2018, then signed with the team full-time for 2019.

In 2020, then, he moved to Alfa Romeo as a reserve driver, where he took part in a handful of free practice sessions and also stood in for Kimi Raikkonen in the Netherlands and in Italy. He remained with the team in a reserve capacity for two more years.

But that reserve role freed up Kubica to dip a toe into endurance racing. In the 2021 European Le Mans Series, Kubica and his team took victory in the LMP2 championship. In 2022 and 2023, he finished second in the LMP2 class at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Also in 2023 came an FIA World Endurance Championship title in the LMP2 class.

Now, in the 2024 WEC series, Kubica is racing a Hypercar — the top class for the series — with customer Ferrari team AF Corse.

Aside from one retirement at Le Mans and one 11th-place finish at Sao Paulo, Kubica and his team have finished in the points in every other event, then capped it off with an impressive win at Circuit of The Americas.

The No. 83 machine moved into the lead within the first hour of the race, then maintained that position through to the chequered flag. It was redemption for the AF Corse team, which had looked so promising at Le Mans only for it all to fall apart due to a retirement.

“It looked pretty easy from outside, but I have to say, within my second stint, I think I was like 15 minutes on the radio while driving,” Kubica told assembled media, including PlanetF1.com, after the race.

“We always try to do our best for also teammates, and this was definitely a teamwork and is a big one.

“I think after Le Mans, where we kind of felt, probably the win slipped [through] our hands because of retirement.

“This is something special, and it has been a tough race.

“Also it has been a good seven days. I’m coming back from ELMS, where I won at Spa. It’s third time in four times racing at Spa with an LMP2 car.

“So, it is a good feeling.”

While many Formula 1 drivers have competed in diverse disciplines, few have dabbled in as many disciplines as Robert Kubica — and even fewer have done so as successfully as Kubica. The Polish racer is, truly, one of a kind.

2024-09-04T19:33:58Z dg43tfdfdgfd