Robert Kubica to return to F1 action with FP1 run for Alfa Romeo in Austria this weekend

Robert Kubica will make his return to Formula 1 action this weekend, when he gets behind the wheel of the Alfa Romeo C39 for the first Free Practice session ahead of the Styrian Grand Prix.

The Polish driver completed an incredible comeback to F1 last season, some eight years after a shocking rallying crash left him with severe arm injuries and halted his Grand Prix career.

Last season he was back racing for Williams, and he scored the only point the struggling team managed all year with 10th place at the German Grand Prix.

He left the Grove team at the end of 2019 to link up with Alfa Romeo – the team he had previously raced and won for in their BMW Sauber guise – as a reserve driver.

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Kubica, 35, ran the team's 2020 car at winter testing back in February, and will return to action at a Grand Prix weekend this Friday when he drives Antonio Giovinazzi's C39 in FP1 on Friday at the Red Bull Ring, ahead of the second back-to-back race at the Austrian track.

“I am looking forward to returning to action this weekend, especially after the long break the whole world of motorsport had to observe," he said. "My objective, as always, is to provide as much data as possible for our engineers and to give them my feedback from within the cockpit.

"This weekend will be quite a new experience for everyone, racing in the same venue we were on just a few days ago, so it will be a matter of refining all the data we collected over the course of the Austrian Grand Prix and testing the adjustments we want to make to the cars.”

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Team boss Frederic Vasseur added: "A driver with his experience always comes up with valuable feedback and he’ll be able to help us continue learning about our car.

"Robert was with the team last weekend, of course, and so he is fully aware of everything that was discussed in the engineering meetings and during each session: it’ll be a chance for him to experience the car by himself and, armed with that knowledge, help us progress further.”

The team had a mixed race on Sunday, with Giovinazzi bringing home two points with a ninth-place finish, while Kimi Raikkonen suffered a dramatic exit after he lost a wheel coming into the final corner on the track, as you can see in the video above.