RK:
Well, first and foremost, Felix is simply a very nice guy. But he came here to win the championship and, for him, it has been very difficult to deal with his lack of consistency in terms of results. Of course, sometimes he was very quick. I have worked with two very good team-mates in my career. For me, Bruno Spengler was very special, and we are still very good friends.
Q:
I hear that you have become really popular back in Poland…
RK:
In Poland, motorsport has never really had much of a popular following. Motor racing is not very well developed there. I think that the World Series by Renault and my success in the championship had helped a lot to make the sport more popular back home. My manager, Daniel Morelli, and the people that work with me in Poland are doing their best to educate people about motor racing. Now you can watch the World Series by Renault races on TV, and the newspapers are talking about something else than just football. There is also a growing interest in single-seater racing.
Q:
And, last week, your office organised a press conference in the capital, Warsaw, and there were more than 80 journalists in attendance!
RK:
We organised something similar three years ago and only 15 journalists attended! My results, and winning a championship like the World Series by Renault, has helped a lot. To some extent, it has been a question of us raising media awareness. In Formula One, they only know about Schumacher and, maybe now, Alonso. They asked some strange questions but, overall, I was very happy with the situation.
Q:
Where do you see your future?
RK:
The dream of every single professional driver is to go into
Formula One. As the title winner, I will get a test in the R25 with the Renault
F1 team and we will see where things go from there. I'm totally confident that Daniel Morelli will do a good job. I cannot talk about things much at the moment, but you know how it is. Formula One is very difficult discipline to get into and sometimes getting a drive is a just a question of luck.
Q:
You started your racing career very young: at the age of ten. And then you moved to Italy. Was that not hard on you at such an early age?
RK:
I started training in karting when I was seven but, in Poland, you can only get a licence when you are ten. After three years of competition, my father and I decided that I would move to Italy. At that stage, I was living with the family of the owner of the karting team, like many other drivers. After four races, I got a contract as a professional driver with CRG. I was still trying to continue my studies, but I have to admit I was not top of the class at school. Racing is my life and I was doing what I liked best. Of course, I lost touch with my friends in Krakow but, over the last two years, I have returned to my hometown and my friends are still there!
Q:
Before Monza, you have some free time for yourself. What is a normal day in the life of
Robert Kubica like?
RK:
Well, I have to do a lot of training, especially working on my neck because it is a very big step to move up from a F3 car to a Formula Renault 3.5 litre. I have a girlfriend and I have a life pretty much like any other guy in his twenties - playing on the computer, bowling and skiing, for instance. Having said that, I am a very quiet person and I like to stay at home with my family because I don't get to spend so much time with them during the season.
