BMW Sauber F1 Team
2007 FIA Formula One World Championship
Driver Profiles: Robert Kubica

Self-made man
Robert Kubica may be just 22 years old, yet he can already look back on 18 years of motor racing experience. The Pole was just four when he spotted a small off-road buggy in the display window of a department store in his home town of Krakow. The youngster begged and pestered until his mother Anna finally gave in. Her son has since become well known for his persistence. 

Robert’s father Artur used plastic bottles to mark out a small circuit in a car park, where Kubica jnr. could give his new wheels a run-out. However, as only one of the rear wheels had any drive, the four-horsepower buggy handled differently through right and left-hand corners. His father couldn’t help but notice how quickly his young son was able to adapt to this idiosyncrasy.

Day after day, Robert drove round and round the makeshift circuit, but soon his skill at the wheel became too much for the 4 hp vehicle. His father duly traded it in for a small rear-wheel-drive model Porsche, which could reach speeds of up to 80 km/h. Not bad for a kid still in short trousers, but this was child’s play to this particular five-year-old. Indeed, Robert soon had the car drifting sideways – and costing his father a small fortune in rear tyres in the process. Eventually, Artur Kubica sold the Porsche and replaced it with a kart. The minimum age for competing in official kart races in Poland was ten years old, but father and son still travelled to the nearest kart track once or even twice a week, even though that was 150 kilometres away.

Robert was eventually cleared to race in the Polish Kart Championship once he had turned ten, and he went on to collect six titles in two different categories over the next three years.

All or nothing.
The Kubicas had reached a crossroads. Robert had won everything there was to win in Poland and now was left with nowhere to go. Artur decided to throw caution to the wind, taking out the bank loan which allowed his son to line up in the intensely competitive Italian Kart Championship.

While the other drivers in the series were turning up at the circuits in fully kitted-out trucks, the Kubicas had to be content with simply lashing their kart onto the roof of their BMW, Artur’s pride and joy. With just a few spare parts stashed away in the boot, father and son set off on the 1,500-kilometre journey to Robert’s first race. The family team enjoyed overwhelming early success, but the money ran out after just a few races. Fortunately, Robert had done enough to earn a contract with kart manufacturer CRG. In 1998, at the age of 13, he moved to Italy, living in a room in his employer’s house.

His whole life now revolved around lap times and he learnt to speak Italian. The same year, Kubica became the first foreign driver to win the Italian Kart Championship, and also secured second place in the European Championship. Next up was victory in the prestigious Monaco Kart Cup.

A year later he repeated this success in the Italian Kart Championship and Monaco Kart Cup, but this time added the German title, the Elf Masters and the highly respected Margutti Trophy to his trophy haul. After another year in kart racing, he was snapped up by manager Daniele Morelli, who organised a test for him in a Formula Renault 2000 car. Morelli also negotiated deals with sponsors to cover a season in Italian Formula Renault. Kubica claimed a pole position in his first year and earned a place on the Renault driver development programme.

Well armed.
In 2003 it was time for the Pole to take the next step in his career. That winter he tested a Formula 3 car, but his rapid progress was to suffer an abrupt setback. Shortly before the first race of the season, he was a passenger in a car accident and sustained complicated fractures in his right arm. His doctors forecast a recovery time of up to six months. “The worst thing was not knowing whether the injury would have negative consequences for my career”, recalls Kubica of his fears at the time.

However, just five weeks after the crash Robert was back in a racing car for a Formula 3 Euro Series race at the Norisring in Germany. Kubica stormed to victory, his right hand shielded by a plastic cuff and his arm held together by 18 titanium screws. It was a quite extraordinary debut. The highlight of the rest of the season was at the tradition-steeped race in Macau in which he claimed pole position, set the fastest race lap and finished in second place.

Kubica left a lasting impression with the Epsilon Euskadi team during winter testing and was awarded a contract for the World Series by Renault in 2005. There he won four races and was confirmed as champion three races before the end of the season. It was an important triumph, especially as the reward for the winner was a test in a Renault Formula One car in Jerez at the start of December 2005.

Three hours at the wheel was enough to post a succession of impressive lap times. Three weeks later, BMW Motorsport Director Mario Theissen, who had personally watched Robert’s successful drive at the prestigious 2005 Macau Grand Prix in November, signed him up as the BMW Sauber F1 Team’s test and reserve driver – without so much as seeing him turn a wheel in the team’s F1 car. It was a gamble, no doubt about that, but one that had paid off before January was out. Kubica was setting some fine lap times, demonstrating admirable consistency and providing astonishingly good technical feedback. Still only 21, the Pole was going about his work with the unaffected ease of a man born to drive a racing car.

Into the car and flat out.
In his first outing as a Friday driver at the Formula One season-opener in Bahrain, a circuit he had never driven before, Kubica soon had his name at the top of the time lists. “I look at the pictures from the on-board cameras and walk the track to find out where the bumps are, but that’s about it”, he said, downplaying his skill at the wheel. While Robert was taking his accession to F1 very much in his stride, his success had sparked an outbreak of “Kubica-mania” back in his native Poland. Afforded superstar status more or less overnight, he became the darling of the press. Kubica’s inexorable rise then hit even greater heights at the Hungarian GP, where he lined up on the grid for the race proper.

He could not have picked a more difficult race in which to celebrate his F1 debut, yet Robert made light of the chaotic weather conditions to storm home in seventh place. A technicality ultimately cost him his first World Championship points, but he didn’t have to wait long to redress the balance, finishing on the podium at Monza – just two grands prix later. This was also the day, of course, that Michael Schumacher announced his retirement from the sport. As a result, all the cameras were focused on the seven-times world champion, but that didn’t bother Kubica: “That just means I was not so much the centre of attention. The most important thing is what happens on the track, not any fuss about me personally.” And that is typical of the man.

Kubica is equally adept at keeping his feet on the ground as he is his car. His formative years in Italy and the setbacks he’s experienced through his career so far have had a profound effect. He has a fine instinct for what is and what isn’t important, and he’s never forgotten the people who have helped him get where he is today. He has very little time to himself between races, testing and dates with sponsors, but that’s not something he minds: “I’m doing the thing I enjoy the most. If you look at it like that, every day is a holiday.”

Biography - Robert Kubica

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