Missing out on Ferrari F1 drive felt like "bleeding" to Robert Kubica
· Yahoo Sports
Robert Kubica revealed that racing – and winning – for AF Corse Ferrari in the World Endurance Championship helped close the deep emotional wound of his rallying accident, which interrupted his Formula 1 career.
On 6 February 2011, Kubica was taking part in the Ronde di Andora rally as part of his extracurricular activities when he endured a severe crash, which left him with permanent injuries to his right arm and leg.
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Not only did the Renault driver have to give up on that F1 campaign, but unbeknownst at the time was the fact that he had already signed a contract with Ferrari for the 2012 season.
The deal fell through because of the rallying accident, as he spent a year and a half away from racing, and it took a lengthy six years for him to return to action in an F1 car.
However, Kubica did race again in the world championship in 2019 and briefly in 2021; most importantly, he switched to endurance racing that same year and went on to win the Le Mans 24 Hours in 2025 with the AF Corse privateer Ferrari 499P, which he shared with Phil Hanson and Ye Yifei.
Read Also: You Ask The Questions: Robert KubicaAnswering Autosport readers’ questions ahead of the 2026 edition of the French enduro, Kubica was asked how winning Le Mans as a Ferrari driver felt in the context of his unfulfilled Ferrari F1 contract.
“We have to clarify because in the end I'm not a Ferrari driver, I'm racing behind the Ferrari 499P wheel, but I'm an AF Corse driver,” the Pole replied.
“It's a bit different of course, it's impossible to compare those days where in the end I was on the way to become a Ferrari F1 driver. Nothing to take away from the Hypercar category, but of course when you are in Formula 1, I think as an established driver there are two things which I had always a goal – hopefully one day becoming world champion or an opportunity to fight for it, and second one was to become a Ferrari F1 driver.
“So I didn't achieve [either] of them, I was on the way to become a Ferrari F1 driver, unfortunately because of the accident it didn't happen.
#83 AF Corse Ferrari 499P: Yifei Ye, Robert Kubica, Philip Hanson
#83 AF Corse Ferrari 499P: Yifei Ye, Robert Kubica, Philip Hanson“For sure you cannot compare them, but I have to say that one of the reasons why at the end of 2023 I decided to drive for AF Corse was that… in previous questions I said I overcame every kind of bad memories I had after my accident; one of the things which was always destabilising myself, or kind of a bit bleeding still, was that one of the biggest regrets probably was that I never managed to sit behind the Ferrari wheel in a F1 car.
“Of course there are technical reasons but one of the reasons why I said ‘Yes I will go this direction with AF Corse’ was that probably in the future if I would not go I will regret that I had a chance to drive a Ferrari car in Hypercar and I didn't. So this was also one of the kind of more emotional things than any technical aspects; probably you will never have this kind of thinking, but because there was this bleeding thing still for many years, this was, let's say, my way of thinking.”
Now 41 years old, Kubica finished seventh in the 2026 Le Mans 24 Hours alongside his team-mates, with the podium eluding them so far this season in a highly competitive – albeit controversial amid Balance of Performance secrecy – World Endurance Championship.
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