04/07/2017
NEWS STORY
While Renault has continued to play down the story, one has to admit that the French manufacturer has continually appeared to douse the flames with gasoline.
Last month, at a time Jolyon Palmer was struggling to open his points account and speculation over his future with Renault mounted, the French manufacturer gave Robert Kubica a n outing in one of its old cars.
Despite the protestations that it was a private test, unfinished business and the work of a few sentimental souls at Enstone who had worked alongside the Pole before his horrendous rally crash in February 2011, the story refused to go away.
Speaking in Baku, as Palmer's miserable season went from bad to worse, team boss Cyril Abiteboul was keen to kill rumours of Kubica driving the Renault in FP1 at Monza.
"I don't know where this is coming from and I can completely wipe that one out," he told reporters. "Robert has been a family member of the Enstone team, he has been very close and very loyal.
"The team in Enstone, which is a very small group of people, actually have been very loyal to a number of drivers. In particular Robert made a huge impression on people who've been around, Alan Permane, Bob Bell, Ricardo on the Viry side. People feel very loyal and feel they owe something to Robert for making something big in their life and there was this opportunity that we give to him, that we could afford to him to drive again, because it was actually a marketing event that got cancelled, so we had a car available at the track and we offered that opportunity to him.
"Robert is going through some form of programme to try to understand what he can do. He has been driving a number of cars, Formula E, GP3, F2, LMP2, you name it, so I think he wants to understand what he can do as part of his sort of rehabilitation programme. We'll see.
"There is nothing else that is planned for the time being," he concluded, before adding... "apart from a marketing event at Goodwood, where he will be driving the same car, E20, in front of Lord March's house."
Sure enough, a week later the popular Pole was in action at Goodwood.
As rumours of a further test with Renault continue, some saying it could involve the post-Hungary test, Kubica continues to insist that a return to F1 is fully possible.
"If you asked me how much I was realistically thinking that coming back to F1 was possible, I would have put myself up to 10 or maximum 20 percent chance," he told Auto Express referring to his chances before last month's test in Valencia. "Because the clock is running, not just the classification, but also I am getting older. F1 is going so fast that some people forget, not everyone, but some."
Asked what he now feels his chances of a return are, he said: "Because I'm very realistic, and I'm keeping my feet on the ground, I'd put it at 80 or 90 percent.
"You build up your own question marks, based on how you know yourself and your body," he continues, "and if you'd asked me about them after the first run at Valencia, they were gone, gone, gone, gone.
"It becomes much easier than I thought. This gives you good confidence and puts you in a completely different level, of trying to have a better feeling in the car and better performance. Once my comfort, or let's say limitation things, were gone in three laps, I could concentrate on trying to get back to the proper rhythm.
"I'm surprised how it felt," he admits, "it felt for me like I hadn't driven for one month, not six years.
"My first target was to see if I could be capable of doing it, so this is more or less done," he adds. "Second, let's say, realistically talking, is raising the game slowly and step by step.
"F1 is a tough competition and I have been away from racing a long time, but I think most of the question marks I had are gone, and I'm very comfortable with it. Actually it was a huge relief for me because this test would have been a case of, 'Yes, I can do this' or 'No, I have to close the door on F1 forever'."