Williams should ‘definitely’ sign Kubica

Williams should “definitely” sign Robert Kubica as Lance Stroll’s 2018 team-mate; that’s according to former F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone.

Although Kubica initially plotted his F1 return with Renault, even driving for the team in the post-Hungarian GP test, their decision to sign Carlos Sainz for next season shut that door.

However, it wasn’t long before Williams showed an interest with the Polish driver testing a FW36 at Silverstone this past week.

That was just his first outing with the team as Kubica will be back in action at the Hungaroring later this month in what could be a shoot-out against Paul di Resta for a 2018 race-seat.

“If Robert had not have had his accident, then I think by now he would have been World Champion anyway,” Ecclestone told Motorsport.com.

“I think he can come back even stronger than before.

“Mentally, I think probably he will be more aggressive than he was then: so I can only see good, good things for him.

“In terms of his physical conditions, years and years ago, when I had a race team, we had a guy called Archie Scott-Brown who drove for us.

“Archie was bloody quick and he was in a worse position than Robert, much worse, and he managed to be very successful and bloody quick.

“I don’t think his injury will hold him back.”

He added: “If he does what I think he is going to be do – be even better than before – then people will get behind him. He will be good to have for Formula 1.

“If I were Williams, I would definitely try to persuade him to join.

“Maybe they are going to lose Felipe Massa at the end of the year, I should think he has probably had enough, and if Robert is on board then he might wake up a lot of people there.

“The team hasn’t been performing as well as it should have done, and whether it is because of drivers or the team in general, I don’t know. Nobody knows.

“So it would be nice to get a guy who should be quick in the car to find out.”