Robert Kubica says crashing on World Rallies won't slow him down

Kubica crashed twice during last year's Wales Rally GB driving for Citroen, and also crashed while battling for the podium on last month's Monte Carlo Rally.

The Polish star will tackle snow for the first time in his fledgling rally career in Sweden this week and says he will continue to push hard in order to learn more about rallying.

"You only learn to drive really fast by driving fast," he said.

"When you drive slowly many things never happen and you don't learn.

"My target one day is that I hope be able fight for the win and I need to discover those things in the way I will approach the rallies in the future.

"This is the price I am paying. The experience I have and the pace I have does not go together.

"You could drive and finish a rally 2.5 seconds [per kilometre] off the pace, but you learn much less than driving at the pace.

"On gravel, these cars are made for force, they are made to put load through, and when I am driving slow I don't put load on the tyres and then there is no grip and this gives more moments.

"It's not so simple and people think if I drive slow I will be better, but driving slow gives me more moments."

Kubica said his time in Formula 1 did not necessarily help him learn the car control needed in rallying.

"F1 is completely different," he added, "and the skills I take from F1 are not negative, but they are not helping all of the time.

"In F1 you use all the grip you have and you use as much road as you have - everything is in perfection.

"In rallying you always have to consider that you don't know how much grip is there and it's difficult to know how the corner looks. It's not the same."

Kubica was ninth fastest on the pre-Rally Sweden shakedown stage on Wednesday morning, in which Citroen driver Mads Ostberg set the fastest time.