"It was not so clear he was going to survive," he said, recalling his initial conversation with Morelli. "I tried to drive to the hospital to find out exactly what his injuries were."

He added: "Now he is recovering well and we hope to see him back very soon in F1."

The Ferrari driver defended Kubica's decision to contest rallies for which both the Pole and his F1 team have been heavily criticized.

"We need to have something to get some adrenalin out of our system and rallying is good training from an F1 driver's point of view.

"I train on a bicycle every day, and a couple of weeks ago a friend and myself were out riding and a truck cut in front us.

"A few meters nearer and we would have crashed into it. You cannot cut out risk."