Robert Kubica answers your questions

Known to be a man of few wasted words, but also one in whom the passion for motor racing burns brightly, Robert Kubica cuts a faintly enigmatic figure in the paddock. He wears the trappings of the partially off-duty Formula 1 driver - team kit, not fireproofs - and yet he still remains tantalisingly outside the circle of F1's elite, in spite of the sheer focus that's gone into his rehabilitation from the accident that nearly cost him his hand - and his life.

Robert was once a keen poker player (although not any more... read on), and whatever thwarted ambitions he carries with him do not manifest themselves on his face. F1 Racing passes him the cards - it's a chunky pack; only Kimi Raikkonen would generate such a similarly overflowing postbag - and seemingly without thinking, he shuffles the cards. Old habits die hard.

So too, it seems, does the competitive spirit. What becomes crystal clear over the course of the next half an hour is that despite missing out on the Williams race seat he so coveted, Kubica remains as competitive and committed as ever...

What do you most enjoy about being back in Formula 1? Chris Sartor, UK

Definitely having the opportunity to drive these cars, although F1 has changed a lot compared with when I was racing. They're achieving very good lap times but in a different way. But I think for a driver, the most enjoyable part of the game is the driving.

Hi Robert, I'm incredibly proud of what you've done - you're a hero to me. Tell me, how does it feel when you see so many Polish supporters cheering you everywhere? Michal Nieckarz, Poland

Polish fans are becoming a bigger and bigger group and more active, so it's really nice to be followed and to see them everywhere I go. There has been no one event or race, rally or testing where I have had no Polish support, so that's really great and I would like to thank them. But it's not only the Polish fans - so many people out there were cheering for me and supporting me.

It's great to see you in a team with so much potential going forward. What are your hopes and expectations this season - for yourself and for the team? Christopher Jackson, UK

My position is a bit different in the team. I'm not racing, so I have different goals than I would have if I was racing. I'm not fighting for points or qualifying positions, but still I have some goals for this year. Of course I would like to help the team and get involved with many things and this is a good opportunity for me to get involved in the much wider picture than I would be able to if I was racing - from the technical and engineering points of view.

Where do you keep your winner's Canadian Grand Prix trophy? Adam Pender, UK

It's a very simple answer: I don't have it!

F1 Racing: Who's got it?

RK: BMW.

F1R: You don't have a replica or anything?

RK: No.

Do you still play poker? Tomek Zwolinski, Poland

Not for a long time. I have good memories from Australia, but I won't even visit the poker room this year. The passion and the fun of playing it has gone.

Who is the toughest opponent you have ever encountered? James Kruuse, Kenya

I think Lewis Hamilton. We've raced since we were very young; he's a very tough one. There are other tough guys I have been racing with - most of them from F1 - but Lewis and I have been racing for so many years together in different categories, that's why it's him.

Why did you choose Nico Rosberg to help you last year? Zuzanna Oskiera, Poland

Nico had good experience with Formula 1 and of course he has won a world championship. He decided to stop, which I think is a decision that we have to respect and one that shows his maturity. For sure it was not easy for him. He played a very important role last year; we met up a few times and then I asked him if he would be happy to help me, and he was, and he did quite a lot to get me to where I am now.

F1R: Are you still working together now?

RK: Yes and no...

What is your favourite pizza? Luca Romagnoli, Italy

Most of the time I would take prosciutto funghi.

Which circuit that's on the calendar now, but wasn't when you were last in F1, are you most looking forward to driving on? Melodee Ghosn, USA

Definitely Baku. I will not be driving on the track there this year, but on the sim maybe! From the outside Baku looks very challenging, and normally what looks challenging on television is even more challenging when you experience it in reality.

You can tell us now... did you have a Ferrari contract? Andy Groves, UK

Well, I don't know if I can tell you that... [laughs]. It's already been a few years, but still it's a delicate topic. I think it was admitted by someone from Ferrari that we had come quite close to it. But we were probably closer than everybody thinks.

When did you realise you were ready to get back into an F1 car? Fern Lock, UK

All of my rehabilitation, all of my journey, has been quite complicated and exhausting. I think the turning point was when I decided to stop rallying. Then I started working on my physical aspects, and then I realised that by raising difficulties I'm having better results than expected, not only performance but from a physical point of view. And I found maybe I can do the same things but I have to find a different way. Before I was not accepting this and I was trying to do the same things in the same way as before, which was not possible or was very difficult. And then I was getting disappointed.

F1R: You did the GP3 and Formula E tests - they're very different to rallying. How was the sensation?

RK: I tested the GP3 car mainly to understand my physical limitations. I was raising the difficulty step by step. First I was discovering performance, second I was seeing if I was able to do it, and third was about what level I can get to and stretch my body without really losing performance. It was quite a good period. It was difficult, but I had some very good surprises about my reactions and the feeling I had from my body.

Would you like a go in the new WRC cars? Nigel Williams, UK

Well, if I say no I will be lying!

F1R: Any opportunities there?

RK: Actually, last year I was pretty close to doing a few events. There was a possibility but there was no car, and then honestly I wanted to focus on coming back to racing. I didn't want to create a situation where I would try the car, and I would like it and it would put me again with some doubts about what I want to do.

How different is this hybrid power unit car compared with the cars equipped with the previous generation of engines? Maurizio Bollini, Italy

The power unit is one of the big differences between current Formula 1 and the generation of cars when I drove before, but it's not the biggest one. It's complicated for the mechanics and the engineers and designers, but for the drivers it's not. When we had the early years with KERS it was much more complicated. Now everything is optimised. Everybody knows the system, there's so much simulation going on.

How did you feel when, for the first time after a long break, you got back into an F1 car? Paulina Nikodemska, Poland

It was one of my best days, not only because I got back into an F1 car but because I realised how big is the potential of our brain. It was at Valencia, six-and-a-half years after my accident, and after a couple of laps I realised that it felt like two months. The feeling was like being back at home - one of the best feelings I've had in my life.

F1R: Have you got any interest in being on the other side - running a team, that sort of thing?

RK: First of all, I have big respect for those people and I have no experience of doing what they do. Second of all, as I say, I'm still thinking and I have the attitude of being a racing driver. I think by having those people who run the team and by having a driver who is honest and straightforward it helps to translate, and to make people understand how the driver is feeling. Formula 1 is all about performance, numbers, analysis, simulation, and many people focus a lot on the pure numbers because it's such a tough business and performance is everything.

But in the end racing cars are being driven by humans and the performance comes also from me, the driver, otherwise there would be no top teams paying huge amounts to get the top drivers. And those human beings sometimes in all this complicated and complex data are left too much apart.

Which F1 driver was your biggest supporter during your recovery? Yusuf Faqihi, Bahrain

It's a difficult question, because in the end I did, by myself, decide to go away quite drastically from F1. It wasn't because I was hiding, it was sort of protection for myself, even to talk to people who were there at the race weekends was giving me strange emotions, strange feelings, so I didn't have much contact during my recovery. In the beginning, for sure, a lot of people came to visit me at the hospital. Fernando Alonso was one of the first, and he was quite close to me in the beginning.

But then, as I said, people are involved in their own lives and I decided by myself not to get too involved. I was still watching F1 races. I missed it, but I realised that even the small things were giving me these feelings that made me miss it more and that is painful. So it was a strange move from my side, but I think it was necessary.

Do you still play Colin McRae Rally? What racing games do you play now? Jagoda Tomala, Poland

I don't play Colin McRae now - it's quite an old game. I used to play it and spent a lot of hours with my friends. Now I use iRacing. It's less arcade; I have a simulator at home to train a bit.

F1R: Have you got the full set up?

RK: Yeah, but it's static. The power motor for my steering wheel for force-feedback has, I think, one of the highest loads that can be produced on the market, and I can get it up into the region of GP2, which is more than double that of F1. The idea was to use it for training, but then I was so much involved in the simulator last year in different projects that I've used it only a few times. So now I use it with my friends and we have some fun.

What was going through your mind when you had that big crash in Canada 2007? Iqbal Rizal, Malaysia

Nothing really. Everything was happening very fast. I remember once I went off the track the car was launched in the air and what I could see was sky and the final row of the grandstand on the other side of the track! In those moments, nothing goes through your mind, you just realise that probably you will be in the big shit!

And then I didn't have a clue where I stopped. I remember there was an oil leak, and the first thing I felt was the heat from the oil and then when I was extracted from the car. Then when I realised that everything was okay, and I had only a little pain on my ankle, I said to the doctors "I'm fine" - and they looked at me as if I was in shock. But it was a kind of miracle.