Robert Jozef Kubica is a Polish racing driver who was born in Krakow on 7 December 1984. After an absence of more than eight years, he made his comeback in Formula 1 in 2019.
Kubica was sold from an early age to driving off-road cars and karts. The Pole had a very successful kart career in which he won the Junior Monaco Kart-Cup. He also came fourth in the European and World karting championships.
In 2000 the Pole tested a Formula Renault car. At the first race om the Formula Renault Championship he immediately scored a pole position. After this, he switched to the Formula 3 Euroseries and scored a victory in 2003. He finished second in the Macau Grand Prix in 2004. His breakthrough came in 2005 when he took the title for Epsilon Euskadi in the World Series by Renault 3.5 championship. With four wins and eleven podiums, the Pole was untouchable. In the same year he became a test driver at Renault.
In 2006 Kubica made his debut in Formula 1 for Sauber. In his third race, he scored a podium in Italy. Less than a year later the Pole in Canada looked death in the eye for the first time, but only twelve months later he won his only Formula 1 race. Kubica switched from BMW to Renault in 2010 and scored 136 points. With podiums in Australia, Monaco and Belgium, the team showed that it had potential. On 6 February 2011, Kubica was seriously injured in a rally accident. The Pole was in a critical condition in the hospital for a long time, and there were even fears about the amputation of his arm. Kubica recovered and had the opportunity to test in an old Renault in Valencia in early 2017. The Pole fought his way back and became a test driver at Williams in 2018, before starting as a Grand Prix driver in 2019.