Robert Kubica: Updates on his recovery

[Tony]

Why are they letting an F1 driver race in other series?

That was the same question I had... apparently Renault were desperate for a quality driver and allowed him to have this option in his contract....

[tmcstocker]

In my opinion he should do like the rest of us and do what he likes when he is not at work. If he can't do things in life that he wants to do, then why bother? At the end of the day we all need to do our own little things to reward ourselves or enjoy life. I know he drives an f1 car and that is exciting i'm sure but it's still a job he must take serious and maybe needs a little fun away from all the spotlight.

[Tifoso]

In my opinion he should do like the rest of us and do what he likes when he is not at work. If he can't do things in life that he wants to do, then why bother? At the end of the day we all need to do our own little things to reward ourselves or enjoy life. I know he drives an f1 car and that is exciting i'm sure but it's still a job he must take serious and maybe needs a little fun away from all the spotlight.

Because he's getting paid a ton of money to race in F1. His employers have the right to be reasonably sure that he will show up to work. Racing in another dangerous series decreases the chance (as we have seen, tragically) to show up for F1 work.

[ferrari4life]

yeah he could just have easily had that accident driving on a road to see his grandmother..

[Tifoso]

yeah he could just have easily had that accident driving on a road to see his grandmother..

Without question. I didn't say he had to stay in a bubble. I said that he shouldn't be racing in another series.

Having said that, his employers didn't apparently care. The dips.

[Rob]

Terrifying.

blooming heck!!! wow, he was so lucky!!! im speechless

[Alonsomaniac]

Happy to read he is doing a little better. It will be a tough road that lies ahead but I'm sure Kubica will make it to the finish, which is complete recovery.
If it will be enough to race an F1 car again is not even the most important now, more important is that he can lead a normal life.

[Suzie]

Well whether he should be rallying or not, we can't judge - Ferrari let Kimi rally so it's not just Renault who allow it. And what about our drivers going ski-ing? Anything could happen - broken legs, arms...

[Greig]

Yeah we did let Kimi do it, remember when Todt spat the dummy out cause MS went on a co-drive without telling him

[Tony]

yeah he could just have easily had that accident driving on a road to see his grandmother..

Unlikely, he would not have been driving fast enough (assuming he's responsible on the road).... I understand you need to live your life, but sometimes, you have to know when enough is enough and where the limits are.... I'd love to drive my car at 250 km/h on the highway, but I don't because I know the risks involved.... especially a guy like Kubica that's had 2 major accidents already.... now a third.... this guy is destined to have a big shunt that he does not walk away from it seems.... maybe he's the type of guy that needs a stipulation in his contract to keep him from doing more damage to himself really....

[mm154]

And good old Monty broke his shoulder playing tennis...

I'm sure Robert and Renault knew the risks of going to a rally... If he hadn't crashed no one would have even mentioned that it is a danger close to the start of the season.

[ferrari4life]

Dont know if this has been posted. Someone sent me the simulation of the accident. Its pretty gruesome.

http://jalopnik.com/#!5754835/simula...icas-rally-car

[Poltergeistes]

I wonder if he will have to have a new aproach to racing in F1 after this, and i'm saying this in hopes that yes he will make a full recovery hopefully, like the guys from motogp have problems/fractures on their hands, seeing that they usualy have the so called death grip when they are riding (and driving too i would think). even if the recovery and reconstruction of his hand is successful, i can't imagine that it won't be painful for him when driving, so he would have to manage that death grip all the time. Yes it seems like something easy, but when they are driving those cars close to 300kmh, i would imagine they are holding the steering wheel very tight, and for the entire race probably, so to have to overcome that, and keep in mind to let go of that death grip always, will be another obstacle for him to overcome.

Remember, everything that a F1 driver does is alot simpler for us, since we aren't in that cockpit going at those speeds.

[Tifosi]

e.... I'd love to drive my car at 250 km/h on the highway, but I don't because I know the risks involved.... especially a guy like Kubica that's had 2 major accidents already.... now a third.... this guy is destined to have a big shunt that he does not walk away from it seems.... maybe he's the type of guy that needs a stipulation in his contract to keep him from doing more damage to himself really....

Are you either suggesting that Kubica is a reckless driver or that he has been (and is going to be) naturally more unlucky than other F1 drivers?

You can't sanction a driver for "belief" in the latter and his accidents and form have not shown him to be the former.

Why should Kubica be singled out for a contract stipulation on that basis?

I agree that it's pretty barmy to throw away a chance of winning an F1 WDC on a rally but i guess if Reno let him do it (as other teams have done with other drivers) and Kubica wants to do it then its their agreement. If one of our drivers had done it I would be well annoyed at them for squandering that chance (personal wellbeing aside of course) but its a 2 way contract i guess and once a driver has a certain value to a team it seems there is damn all they can do about it if they want to keep their drivers happy and on their side. Either that or Renault weren't holding all the aces when that contract was signed

[scuderiafan]

Well whether he should be rallying or not, we can't judge - Ferrari let Kimi rally so it's not just Renault who allow it. And what about our drivers going ski-ing? Anything could happen - broken legs, arms...

we are no worse. just before his first rave for Ferrari, Kimi was in a snowmobile wearing a gorilla suit.
I don't know but I think a snowmible is worse than a rally car as there are no restraints

[Poltergeistes]

Dont know if this has been posted. Someone sent me the simulation of the accident. Its pretty gruesome.

http://jalopnik.com/#!5754835/simula...icas-rally-car

This is insane. a guardrail cutting through a rally car like that should not be happening, hopefully the engineers are evaluating this, unless kube had a fighter jet tied under his car, this is just insane.

[Suzie]

I wonder if he will have to have a new aproach to racing in F1 after this, and i'm saying this in hopes that yes he will make a full recovery hopefully, like the guys from motogp have problems/fractures on their hands, seeing that they usualy have the so called death grip when they are riding (and driving too i would think). even if the recovery and reconstruction of his hand is successful, i can't imagine that it won't be painful for him when driving, so he would have to manage that death grip all the time. Yes it seems like something easy, but when they are driving those cars close to 300kmh, i would imagine they are holding the steering wheel very tight, and for the entire race probably, so to have to overcome that, and keep in mind to let go of that death grip always, will be another obstacle for him to overcome.

Remember, everything that a F1 driver does is alot simpler for us, since we aren't in that cockpit going at those speeds.

DC has given an interview about the arm/hand skills needed for F1:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/moto...ne/9389739.stm

Robert Kubica is an extremely talented driver and one of the most likeable and respected guys in the paddock so I hope he makes a successful return to Formula 1.

When that happens is not yet certain but the injury to his right hand is severe.

The challenge for him as he embarks upon making a comeback is to understand what damage there is to the parts of his body that control the fine motor skills you need in your hand to drive an F1 car on the limit.

Hand grip and lower-arm strength are very important in a grand prix car because your body is strapped very firmly into the chassis.

The real skill of the driver is in how delicate he can be with his feet and how precise and reactive he can be with his hands.

I don't know specifically what injuries Robert has suffered but as an absolute minimum he needs to be able to have the motor skills and strength to grip the steering wheel at high loads - cornering forces in a grand prix car are up to 5G - and make the fine adjustments needed to control it.

The cars have power steering, but you need a lot of endurance strength to keep hold of the wheel over race distance. Your hands do fatigue, and if you're heading into a high-speed corner, you squeeze the wheel before you commit to the corner.

It seems likely that Kubica will be out for most of the season and replacing him is going to be impossible for Renault - there are simply not any drivers of comparable quality around.

It's not like he's doing a strength test hanging off a pole over a pool of piranhas and hand strength can vary from individual to individual. However he certainly needs to have the strength to push into the steering wheel to hold himself in place in high-speed corners.

That was a technique I used. I'd lean my elbow on the side of the cockpit and use that as a sort of leverage anchor point.

You would force your thumb and hand up into the steering wheel to lock it into position, because making small adjustments to the steering at 160mph through a corner like Spa's Pouhon is extremely difficult to do.

That's because there is so much movement within the tyre and the car itself, you just want to get it on to the right trajectory. If you need to make a small adjustment it would be with the throttle so, in the high-speed corners, it's about committing and holding on. The big steering inputs come in the medium and slow-speed corners, where it's about being able to feel what the car is doing and being able to make those fine adjustments.

You hold the car in the palm of your hand, the fingers are there to maintain the hand in place and it's the sense of load on your hand that's important.

You need to be able to feel the weight of the steering, because that becomes a guide as to how much grip there is.

When you're controlling the car on the limit, there will be a feeling in your hands and arms; you expect it to feel a certain weight.

If you hit a patch of oil, say, that steering weight reduces significantly and even before the car has started to understeer or oversteer you have started to make a correction.

A racing driver also needs his finger tips for adjusting the knobs and dials on the steering wheel and pulling the gear-change paddle - although there is nothing in the regulations that says it has to be knobs and dials and a paddle, it could be any kind of mechanism that the driver uses to initiate a gear change.

If Robert's able to hold a reasonable weight out front of his body and rotate and move it around at arms' length, I'm sure he'll be able to get back into a race car and do his thing.

He'll need a lot of determination to make a comeback, but he has already proved he's got plenty of that.

If you were putting together your own team, Kubica would be on a very short list of first-pick guys

The fact that he is the first driver from Poland to make it into F1 says a lot. He left home when he was very young, moved to Italy to race and made a number of sacrifices to get where he is.

Fundamentally, though, his comeback depends on whether he gets back the functionality of his arm.

If he's able to get his grip back, I don't see why he can't come back and drive, because the rest of the arm is just bone and muscle.

Robert is universally respected by his peers and extremely well liked in the paddock - as opposed to some drivers who are respected and maybe liked by a few.

In Grand Prix Drivers' Association meetings, which is where drivers get a chance to interact with each other, Robert is always one of the first to get there with a serious point and/or one of the first to get there with humour as well.

From knowing him as a fellow driver to now working for the BBC, he's always great to work with. He knows the environment he is in is a privileged one. He's approachable, there's no element of being a superstar with him, he's just professional.

He's an extremely likeable chap. He's also an extremely talented driver, one of the very best.

Robert might only have won one grand prix so far but everything in his short grand prix career would suggest he is worthy of being held in the same regard as the five world champions on the grid - Fernando Alonso, Jenson Button, Lewis Hamilton, Michael Schumacher and Sebastian Vettel.

And if you were putting together your own team, Kubica would be on a very short list of first-pick guys.

The only question mark over him is that there have been a number of drivers who have shown fantastic potential and then, when it's come to the pressure of having a world championship-winning car, something has triggered that hasn't allowed them to exploit that potential in the way they were in a slightly under-performing car.

I don't think Robert is one of those guys but that's just a gut feeling, as opposed to any form of crystal ball.

I just hope he makes a complete recovery so we can see him back in F1 and find out for sure.

[Poltergeistes]

And guys, they can get hurt even when they are racing go karts, and they do it on a daily basis, skiing, snowboarding (like kimi loved) go kart racing, even bicycle (like nando loves), when they do crash there's the real danger of having a pretty bad fracture. they need to stay fit, physically and mentally, they can't just tell all the drivers, hey from now on all your fitness is going to be done swimming and on a treadmill.

[DIEK]

Flavio Briatore has predicted that Robert Kubica will be back racing in Formula 1 in six months, after visiting him in hospital.

I hope to be wrong, really, but I think Kubica has many possibilities of never return to drive an F1 car... just only need see the wheel of f150 to see how important are the hands in this sport.

[REDARMYSOJA]

I hope to be wrong, really, but I think Kubica has many possibilities of never return to drive an F1 car... just only need see the wheel of f150 to see how important are the hands in this sport.

That's been my concern after hearing how bad his hand was mangled, but it's encouraging that he moved his fingers yesterday. Still I'd say at least one year recovery.

Just as a side note, former Indy car driver Gary Bettenhausen has his hand badly injured in a Sprint car crash. He had the doctors set it so he could still grip the wheel of his racecar. That's dedication folks.

Not something that would likely happen now though.

[Brakefade]

Who the hell is responsible for making sure those guard rails are up to par? If I was Renault and Kubica, I would want to press chargers against whoever that person or persons are. If that simulation is right, that's a complete failure of the guard rail.

[Sha1]

Telling Kubica he's only allowed to race in F1 would be like telling any other athlete that they can't practice (whichever sport they professionally compete it) in their spare time. In other words Renault would be telling Kubica that he's only allowed risking his life during a Grand Prix event, while driving for them.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think many, if any, drivers have such a clause in their contracts.

On a more important note, let's hope Robert is back on the racetrack as soon as possible!

[Tony]

Are you either suggesting that Kubica is a reckless driver or that he has been (and is going to be) naturally more unlucky than other F1 drivers?

You can't sanction a driver for "belief" in the latter and his accidents and form have not shown him to be the former.

Why should Kubica be singled out for a contract stipulation on that basis?

I agree that it's pretty barmy to throw away a chance of winning an F1 WDC on a rally but i guess if Reno let him do it (as other teams have done with other drivers) and Kubica wants to do it then its their agreement. If one of our drivers had done it I would be well annoyed at them for squandering that chance (personal wellbeing aside of course) but its a 2 way contract i guess and once a driver has a certain value to a team it seems there is damn all they can do about it if they want to keep their drivers happy and on their side. Either that or Renault weren't holding all the aces when that contract was signed

I'm implying Kubica has bad luck.... how many times should someone hit their head against the wall before realizing their head will split wide open eventunally? if you've had close calls in the past, maybe it's a sign you need to watch out?

As for rallying, I believe no F1 driver should be allowed by their teams to partake in any other racing event.... F1 is dangerous enough.... like I'm saying, sometimes people need to be restricted a little for their own good....

[Hornet]

The father of a colleague of mine lost both legs due to exact such an accident. He and others who suffered similar fates went to law court to make sure there would no such accident happen again. They are the reason why we have rounded down rails here in Germany.

I wish the same thing was done here in my country. Even after the accident involving a passenger bus being impaled by a guard rail, nothing is done to make these guard rail safer.

And guys, they can get hurt even when they are racing go karts, and they do it on a daily basis, skiing, snowboarding (like kimi loved) go kart racing, even bicycle (like nando loves), when they do crash there's the real danger of having a pretty bad fracture. they need to stay fit, physically and mentally, they can't just tell all the drivers, hey from now on all your fitness is going to be done swimming and on a treadmill.

There's sports with calculated risk, and then there's rallying

Many autoracing takes place on specially build tracks, or even if its street track, the track has been modified to make it safe for racing. No guard rails like this to impale a car. Racing on a mediocre-at-best countryside street is suicidal. Unfortunately, this accident proved just that, these streets are not made for racing. Rallying cars are equipped with rollcage which is good on a normal race track, where all we need is to prevent the passenger compartment from crumbling on impact or when the car rolls over. But how do you protect a car from being impaled? Its not possible to build a car to protect from these dangers on normal streets, which is why we either race at somewhere where the danger is taken away, or you drive safely on a normal street to avoid these danger.

The employer should at least be able to restrict their drivers from taking some huge honking risk like this.

[Hermann]

Some news from Kubica's manager:

http://thef1times.com/news/display/02631

[Anni]

Some news from Kubica's manager:

http://thef1times.com/news/display/02631

Very good news!
The pig-headedness the drivers need to be competitive in F1 seems to either help them with their recoveries.

[vagos]

Very good news!
The pig-headedness the drivers need to be competitive in F1 seems to either help them with their recoveries.

good to see that he has fast recovery!!! i wish him the best and he can take it easy for this year and come back next year!!! most important of all is that he is alive and in impoving health condition!!!

[Rosso Corsa]

I think we need to show support for our fellow sport actually. Rally must continue forever, just like F1, and not become subject of nanny state rubbish. We certainly shouldn't be attacking it from the inside. Some of you people would wrap these guys up in cotton wool and deny them their right to live as they wish. You should think again. The guys know the risks, all appropriate measures are taken to provide safety, but sometimes something bad's going to happen. It comes with the territory. Support your fellow sports and sportsmen.

[Tifosi]

I'm implying Kubica has bad luck.... how many times should someone hit their head against the wall before realizing their head will split wide open eventunally? if you've had close calls in the past, maybe it's a sign you need to watch out?

As for rallying, I believe no F1 driver should be allowed by their teams to partake in any other racing event.... F1 is dangerous enough.... like I'm saying, sometimes people need to be restricted a little for their own good....

Racing drivers who start to think like that don't stay in the game very long afterwards.
Managers of racing drivers think like that, racing drivers can't afford to. Also, you are still implying that luck or lack of it is something that a driver can be afflicted with so to speak.

As I say, I do agree with you about the rallying but it's pretty clear that Reno weren't in a position to make that demand of Kubica for whatever reason. You can't just force all of your employees to live the way you want them to when you're dealing with employees who are in great demand!

[TIFOSI_FERRARI]