Kubica: Desire to improve brought me back to F1

Robert Kubica has credited his own desire to improve as a driver for bringing him back to Formula 1.

The Pole completed a sensational return last weekend in Australia, taking part in his first Grand Prix since 2010. In early 2011, Kubica was involved in a rally accident that left him with life-threatening injuries.

Following his crash, Kubica has been working on finding his way back to F1 ever since, and signed with Williams for the 2019 season after spending the 2018 campaign as its development driver.

Although he is driving a far from competitive car this year, Kubica says he has no regrets over his attempted comeback.

"Because of my limitations it looks like I have to show always more than the others as people are putting question marks and doubts,” said Kubica.

“The only thing I can do is try and do my job the best I can and try to leave all Grands Prix with positives and negatives, because I don’t believe there can be 100 per cent positive things.

“You can always do better things; even if you’re winning races, you can always improve. I think I’m honest enough with myself to judge properly and correctly what I have to learn, where I have to learn and where I have to improve.

“I think only with this approach, and only this approach, brought me back to Formula 1 and actually to keep fighting, otherwise for me it would [have] been much easier to six years ago accept opportunities in GTs, DTM, enjoy it there and have even less stress.

“I [would] have probably more fun with driving as I would probably be fighting for better positions, but somehow there is a reason I’m here [in F1]. It might be that at the end of the year I will regret something but one thing I will not regret is to try. Very simple.”

Kubica sustained car damage on the opening lap of the Australian Grand Prix but is happy with the way he managed things after a difficult qualifying.

"I was disappointed with things [in qualifying in Australia], not only the performance, in the end I know the reasons, but I didn’t handle some things the way I liked," he said.

“In the race, in an even more difficult situation, I think I handled it correctly.”