Williams had a tough start in the 2019 season, with Robert Kubica and his team-pair Georg Russell being the slowest on the grid by significant margin at last weekend’s season-opening Australian Grand Prix.

The Polish Driver completed the race three laps down, although his race was compromised from the start as he damaged his car in a clash with Pierre Gasly.

Despite, asked by Autosport if he had any regret about his decision to return to Formula 1, Robert Kubica said that the personal satisfaction of returning to Formula 1 after eight years away outweighed the negatives for the current situation.

 “No, because in the end I took the decision after thinking for more than six weeks last year.

 "I knew it would be an extremely difficult challenge for me to be back in such a competitive sport and being on the grid, and I knew it might be difficult for Williams.

"But I didn't expect to come to Australia so unprepared”, said Kubica,

He pointed out how that the late start at the pre-seasoning testing was detrimental to prepare for the first race at Melbourne.

"[That's] not from a physical point of view but from a lack of driving. For me, before testing, Barcelona would be the most important days of the last eight years as a driver - although not as a person, when I was in hospital and couldn't walk.

"As a driver, there haven't been more important test days in my life from the driver point of view as Barcelona.

"Unfortunately Barcelona didn't work out at all. “So it put me into the difficult position, but somehow I have to go through them here, in Bahrain, and probably for a couple more races.

"But I hope and, from what I can see, I think I cannot regret. Even if I struggled here [in Australia], I still enjoyed it, which is a big difference compared to long time ago.

"I am not an emotional guy but after the race, it felt like a great achievement."

The 2008 Canadian GP winner said the past weekend is not enough to silence those doubting his ability to compete against the best in Formula 1, but he added that he would have never forgiven himself if he had refused the possibility to make a return.

“Because of my limitation, I always have to show more than the others because people always have doubts,” he added.

“The only thing I can do is try to do my job the best I can, and try to leave all the grands prix with positives and negatives.

“I don’t believe that there can be 100% positive things. You can always do better things. Even if you are winning races, you can always improve.

“Knowing how F1 has changed, I think I am honest enough with myself to judge properly and correctly what I have to learn, where I have to learn and improve.

“I think only this approach brought me back to F1 and actually kept me fighting.

“Otherwise for me it would have been much easier six years ago to accept opportunities I have in GT3 or DTM, enjoy, have even less stress, and probably have more fun with driving because I will be probably fighting for better positions.

“But somehow there is a reason why I am here. And it might be that at the end of the year I will regret something, but one thing I will not regret is to try.”