Kubica reveals Ferrari F1 heartbreak still 'bleeding' before Le Mans victory brought closure

Robert Kubica has described missing out on a Ferrari Formula 1 seat as a wound that was “still bleeding” years after his career-altering rally crash, revealing the emotional weight that drove his decision to race — and ultimately win — Le Mans with AF Corse’s Ferrari 499P.

Kubica was injured on 6 February 2011 during the Ronde di Andora rally, suffering permanent damage to his right arm and leg. What was not publicly known at the time was that he had already signed a contract to race for Ferrari in the 2012 F1 season. The accident voided that deal, kept him away from racing for eighteen months, and ultimately cost him six years before he returned to an F1 car.

He did make it back to the grid, racing in F1 in 2019 and briefly in 2021, before transitioning to endurance racing. In 2025, Kubica won the Le Mans 24 Hours sharing the AF Corse Ferrari 499P with Phil Hanson and Ye Yifei — a result that carried far more personal significance than a straightforward sportscar victory.

Answering questions from Autosport readers ahead of the 2026 Le Mans, Kubica was asked what winning in a Ferrari meant given his unfinished business with the Scuderia. He was careful to draw a distinction: “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.”

But he did not shy away from the emotional truth behind his career path. “When you are in Formula 1, I think as an established driver there are two things which I had always as 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,” he said. “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.”

Kubica explained that by the end of 2023, when he committed to AF Corse, one of the key factors was confronting that specific regret. “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 an F1 car,” he said. “One of the reasons why I said ‘Yes’ to AF Corse was that probably in the future, if I would not go, I will regret that I hadn’t.”

The Le Mans win does not rewrite what was lost in 2011, and Kubica acknowledged it is impossible to compare a privateer Hypercar programme with a works F1 drive. But for a driver whose career was reshaped by a single afternoon on a rally stage, the victory represented something more than a result on a timing sheet.