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F1 star Kubica faces 'long recovery'

Lotus Renault's Robert Kubica is very unlikely to return to racing this year following his accident last month.
Lotus Renault's Robert Kubica is very unlikely to return to racing this year following his accident last month.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
  • Doctor treating Robert Kubica says the driver is in a "very positive" psychological state
  • But the Pole faces an uncertain racing future following his crash in Italy last month
  • Pedro de la Rosa returns to McLaren as the team's official tester and reserve driver
  • Sauber's Mexican rookie Sergio Perez posts fastest time in Thursday's Barcelona tests

(CNN) -- Injured Formula One driver Robert Kubica faces a long road to recovery, according to one of his doctors.

The Pole has been in an Italian hospital since his crash in a pre-season rally race on February 6 which required multiple operations, meaning he is likely to miss the whole of 2011 at least.

Dr. Riccardo Ceccarelli, part of the team treating the 26-year-old at Pietra Ligure, said he could not predict when Kubica would be able to return to the race track.

"Nobody has a clear idea of when he will be ready. Even the surgeons don't know because they say we need some months to see the recovery of the muscle tissue and the nerves, which varies from person to person," he told the website of Kubica's team Lotus Renault on Thursday.

"All we know that it will be a long recovery, but we have no idea how long. We see his progress day by day, but we can't make any predictions."

The enormous support from the fans and the F1 community is very important for Robert. Lots of people have come to visit him
--Dr. Riccardo Ceccarelli
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Ceccarelli said Kubica would stay at Pietra Ligure for the foreseeable future.

"There is a full medical team looking after him, so the care he is getting is first-class. There are highly-skilled physiotherapists for his kind of injuries, who are working with him for many hours each day, and for the moment the best solution is for him to stay there," he said.

"He is doing a lot of physiotherapy -- exercises in his bed or in a chair. It's a simple routine to work on his body to help him recover as quickly as possible. The main injury was to his right arm and hand, but he is moving his wrist and fingers, which is positive."

Ceccarelli said Kubica, who finished eighth in the drivers' standings last year following his switch from Sauber, was now in a "very positive" psychological state.

"To begin with, Robert's psychological balance was up and down, but this only lasted a couple of days. After his initial sadness, we saw a good reaction from him because he is mentally very strong," the doctor said.

"The enormous support from the fans and the F1 community is also very important for Robert. Lots of people have come to visit him and this has been very useful for his recovery."

Meanwhile, former Sauber driver Pedro de la Rosa has returned to McLaren as the team's official tester and reserve.

The Spaniard, who has driven 84 grands prix and spent seven seasons at the British team from 2003, will support former world champions Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton.

"Of all the teams I've driven for in Formula One, McLaren is the one that really feels like home," the 40-year-old said. "So I'm very excited about returning to the team to help push the development of the MP4-26."

Button and Hamilton have both already voiced concerns about the new car's pre-season performance, and the team sat out Thursday's testing session in Barcelona but will return to the track on Friday and Saturday ahead of the first race in Australia on March 27.

Team principal Martin Whitmarsh said it would be a mistake to read too much into the testing sessions so far.

"It's simply too early to say anything definitive about the MP4-26 or indeed about any other 2011 Formula One car," he told the F1 website on Thursday.

"Suffice to say that we've had a few reliability issues during testing so far, but we're confident that things are going in the right direction now."

Sauber's Mexican rookie Sergio Perez posted the fastest time on Thursday, clocking one minute 21.761 seconds to head off Ferrari's Felipe Massa and Red Bull's Mark Webber.

Williams' Brazilian veteran Rubens Barrichello was fourth ahead of his old rival and seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher of Mercedes, while Kubica's replacement at Lotus Renault, Nick Heidfeld, was sixth.