Kubica wins Acropolis Rally in WRC2 class

in a polish interview about 2 weeks ago, he was asked how many opertations he has been through, he said "about as many as there are races in an f1 season". He also says no one would understand what he has gone through and how he had to adapt to changes, especially to not thinking about "time" and deadlines. he said a lot of rubbish was written in the press in the time after the accident, he does not think about any timeframe for recovery anymore, as the rehabilitation is so long, he now has no expectations, is just happy to have receovered as much as he has to be able to do everyday things, and be enough to do racing in some form, which he wants to do as he has done it all him life. He also said that he is enjoying driving more now then before the accident, because before it was like taking it for granted, now he can appreciate it just because he is able to do it, when there was a possibility he might never do it again. he also said at the moment he is only driving at about 90% in terms of pushing the limit.



guess what, he is doing another rally this weekend!. here is the start list (name spelt wrong):
[www.rallyepromotion.com]

he will start as number 0, so he drives the stages before the others and will be unclassified. He will be driving his Renault clio (in which he was videod earlier this year), which is s1600 class (lower then s2000 and wrc), but it has a manual right hand shift (the subura he did the 3 previous rallies in had a left hand operated paddle shift). so he is using this rally more as testing/rehab for his right hand, but in an enviroment he can still have a racing mentallity at.

the car he is racing this weekend will almost certainly be used for the "2 bigger rallys" he will compete in november/december, so wins this time are not to be expected.

Also Kubica has said that he will not race again with the First Motorsport Subaru team (which he competed these 3 rallies in). it is because it was left hand paddle shift (moved from original right position to help him), so was easier to drive. he will now drive cars with right hand manual shifters, right elbow rotation is his biggest obsticle, he drove the clio in march/april, but has since had the surgery a couple of moths ago with prosthetic bones put in the elbow, this put his state back a bit, but better for the future. recovery is slow, using a manual shifter with the right hand should be good for his rehab progress.

[twitter.com]


next week he is testing a Mercedes DTM car, but is not likely to race in DTM, but a decision is not yet made, he is likely to contest in this years ERC, drivers only have to compete in 10 races out of the 13, and his first will be in march.

here is a great video of some of his rally action from late last year, he was leading the Rally du Var, a very hard rally by 5 minutes before his co-driver skipped a page of notes, and kubica took a turn at 40kmh too quick and landed in trees and his Citroen got totalled with fire

[www.youtube.com]

If the rumours are true he was 0.5s faster than Paffett, but I guess we have to take that with a grain of salt.

Nice to see him doing well!

---

X (@ed24f1)

In autosprint magazine, they said he was 0.1 seconds slower then paffett, but faster in the wet.
Testing means not much but

What is the most important thing is that Kubicas arm/hand are still improving, though very, very slowly .... but we we should remember he is still only 28. the other important think is Mercedes giving him a chance, "his name still means a lot". Kubica himself said he felt no disability in the DTM car, because it has more space then an F1 cockpit, which he still can not drive in because of his biggest problem, elbow rotation to the arm.

Cotroen WRC bosses are loving him, and want him in their car after testing him.

Kubica now is in a critical decision mode... he needs to decide if he will.. 1. seek to try to return to f1, or 2. seek to form a rally career.

It all depends on his recovery, which is progressing. Kubicas recent interviews suggest he has a long way to go for an f1 return, but things are much improved from even as short as 6 months ago. No One knows how well his nerves will heal, but they have not stopped healling since his accident, and Kubicas has said he is amazed by how the human body can recover... lets also not forget he has had abou 20 surgeries since his crash.

In 2010, Kubicas manager manipulated the press and exagerated his progress and his return. His return to f1 i s now more realisstic - i.e. very difficult, and is reliant on his nerves growing for another year atleast), and possibly one more elbow operation. the great thing is, is that things are still progressing, and have not stalled! and an f1 return, even just to test and f1 car, are definitely on the cards in the future. Kubica sees it, and his fans see it.

Kubica is now considering the DTM series, beginning May (as a step for an f1 return), but it is more likely he will contest the newly formed European Rally Championship this year in his rehabilitation. 2 rounds of the ERC have already been raced this year, but drivers need only attend 10 races to be eligible for the championship. Kubica has already stated that the couple of rallies he attended late last year helped more for his rehabilitation.

Whatever happens, i will cheer him on! he is so lucky to still have 2 hands, and has enough speed to mix it with the best of the them even when driving with only 1 arm and 1 disabled arm.

My father had a similar accident to Kubica, in Poland in the 1970s. his hand is now very strong, and acts like before his accident, and we are both predicting Kubica will soon have enough recovery also in his similar accident (especially with modern medicine), and we are certain he will at least test an f1 car again in the next 2 years.

I think he should definitely go for an F1 return, starting next season. I hope there's an opportunity for him to return as Kimi's teammate if Grosjean gets booted.

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one thing is you take two, three or five laps consistently, quite another to be 30 or 40 laps

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I cannot see him getting back into F1 simply due to the space problem with his arm, which they always said could be the problem.

Time will tell but I think Rally or DTM is his best bet now.

I agree with marcl, I cannot see it happening. More likely will be a WRC drive, which to be honest I hope happens. The problem with F1 is that there are only a limited number of seats available and there are good drivers without drives, plus a few potential superstars coming up through the ranks, plus only Webber and maybe Massa who could retire in the next couple of years. Kubica is too high a risk when there are equally good, or potentially equally good drivers with a lot lower risk factor. No top team is going to take the risk.

I don't think Kubica is a risk in F1. He's a known very good driver and it's easy to test to see whether he's fit enough. From what we've seen it's highly doubtful he'll race an F1 car again, but there's little risk involved. It's either a case of he can or he can't—there isn't a maybe.

Edit: Likewise, DTM or rallying shouldn't be an issue, in the long-run anyway. Provided he can move his arm enough, then the muscle should grow enough to allow him to drive long races, and I guess from a racing point of view, that's his biggest issue—the muscle in the right arm will have wasted away with so little use in the past couple of years. It shouldn't be too much of an issue to build that up again, so providing he can drive any given car, there should be no issue with him racing it.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 02/08/2013 10:33PM by gav.

I think there is a maybe. There´s more to it than whether he has full movement (or sufficient movement) and he has the strength and stamina. There´s also the physcological aspect, which can´t be tested, he may not necessarily be a sharp now as he was 3 years ago. There´s all manner things that could wrong. Plus with the testing ban, he can´t drive a modern F1 car.

Massa, Schumacher and Kimi are great examples of what I mean. Massa taken almost two years to get back to where he was before his accident and only missed half a season. Granted Alonso didn´t help things, but Kubica would have the same situation, assuming he was in a top 6 team.

Schumacher was never anywhere near his best, after a similar time out and a relative minor injury (compared to Massa and Kubicas). We could all blame the car, but there is trend going here.

Kimi, exception to the rule. But no injury and he is not as quick as Mclaren or Ferrari Kimi. He bailed out on a move on Vettel in Bahrain. He should have won that race, he even says himself that Mclaren Kimi would´ve passed Vettel. It´s taken him half a year to get his confidence back. But in his time out, he had been competitively driving the whole time and it still took him a bit to get up to speed and he still not as quick as he was before he left.

Assuming Kubica gets a top 6 team seat in 2014 (there´s no point him going anywhere other than a top 6 team), then realistically even at 100% fitness, he is going to need 6-12 months to get somewhere close to where he was before the accident. That´s 12 months a top team are running an average driver nearing the end of his career. If he was still racing, he would only have 4 maybe 5 years left in him. There´s your risk. Like Grosjean, he either going to get the hang of it and it looks like a genius move or he doesn´t and you look stupid and directors don´t like stupidity.

It´s less risky the further up the grid you go. But he would be better off in WRC than at Caterham. It´s less competitive in WRC and he has a greater chance of doing well there than in F1.

Quote
airefresco
(there´s no point him going anywhere other than a top 6 team)

I'd argue there'd be plenty reason for him to join a lower team. We know he was good, but he's still only won a solitary race. Adding to that the obvious injury issues and seasons missed, then he'd still have plenty to prove before he'd be deemed worthy of a top team. Schumacher would have been missing for a similar length of time, but Schumacher had won 15 more races than Kubica has even entered at the point of his comeback.

airefresco Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Assuming Kubica gets a top 6 team seat in 2014
> (there´s no point him going anywhere other than a
> top 6 team), then realistically even at 100%
> fitness, he is going to need 6-12 months to get
> somewhere close to where he was before the
> accident. That´s 12 months a top team are
> running an average driver nearing the end of his
> career. If he was still racing, he would only
> have 4 maybe 5 years left in him. There´s your risk.

He'd have at least another 10 years potentially in him. He's not even 30 yet, and drivers are well capable of staying on into their 40s, as MS and de la Rosa have shown.

Whatever happens I hope he gets another shot at racing in F1. At least we'd get to see what lasting effect if any the injury has had, although he'd probably need a couple of seasons to start realising his optimum potential. It'd be a shame if he ended up being like Nannini - another very promising young dude cut off just as he was approaching his prime.

---

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/10/2013 01:39PM by EC83.

airefresco Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I think there is a maybe. There´s more to it
> than whether he has full movement (or sufficient
> movement) and he has the strength and stamina.
> There´s also the physcological aspect, which
> can´t be tested, he may not necessarily be a
> sharp now as he was 3 years ago. There´s all
> manner things that could wrong. Plus with the
> testing ban, he can´t drive a modern F1 car.
>
> Massa, Schumacher and Kimi are great examples of
> what I mean. Massa taken almost two years to get
> back to where he was before his accident and only
> missed half a season. Granted Alonso didn´t help
> things, but Kubica would have the same situation,
> assuming he was in a top 6 team.
>
> Schumacher was never anywhere near his best, after
> a similar time out and a relative minor injury
> (compared to Massa and Kubicas). We could all
> blame the car, but there is trend going here.
>
> Kimi, exception to the rule. But no injury and he
> is not as quick as Mclaren or Ferrari Kimi. He
> bailed out on a move on Vettel in Bahrain. He
> should have won that race, he even says himself
> that Mclaren Kimi would´ve passed Vettel. It´s
> taken him half a year to get his confidence back.
> But in his time out, he had been competitively
> driving the whole time and it still took him a bit
> to get up to speed and he still not as quick as he
> was before he left.
>
> Assuming Kubica gets a top 6 team seat in 2014
> (there´s no point him going anywhere other than a
> top 6 team), then realistically even at 100%
> fitness, he is going to need 6-12 months to get
> somewhere close to where he was before the
> accident. That´s 12 months a top team are
> running an average driver nearing the end of his
> career. If he was still racing, he would only
> have 4 maybe 5 years left in him. There´s your
> risk. Like Grosjean, he either going to get the
> hang of it and it looks like a genius move or he
> doesn´t and you look stupid and directors don´t
> like stupidity.
>
> It´s less risky the further up the grid you go.
> But he would be better off in WRC than at
> Caterham. It´s less competitive in WRC and he
> has a greater chance of doing well there than in
> F1.

Regarding the psychological aspect, Robert is a brave man, the first racing car he got back into after his near death rally crashed that ruined his career (for now), was a rally car! and it was his Renault clio with a manual right hand shifter (his injured side) and he proved to himself that he still has pace, by going faster in his Renault Clio on a track he drove before the accident. since the crash, he has had another hairy incident, when his co-driver skippped a page of pace notes at the Rally du Var, and Kubica took a turn about 40kmh too quick. both drivers were unhurt, but the car caught fire and was destroyed. Kubica has had too many bad crashes to care anymore i think, he just wants to drive fast, he has said when his is driving, he forgets about his injuries.

Also, strength in his arm is not his problem, neither is some lack of movement in his fingers, they are all coming along... he does rehab and strength work every week several times. the big problem is his elbow and which prevents proper rotation and mobility of his arm, he has had many operations, and even one that put prosthetics in his elbow which havent fixed the problem. there is one more potential operation which Kubica has been holding off, because he says his body needs a break from big operations, and is hoping to regain use by rehab first, a reporter recently asked him how many operations he had, and he said nearly as much as there are races in an f1 season.

In the recent F1 magazine, the interviewer said Kubicas handshake was firm. Kubica has also said his hand condition is much better then it looks, its just the elbow problem......

kubica2 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> airefresco Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > I think there is a maybe. There´s more to it
> > than whether he has full movement (or
> sufficient
> > movement) and he has the strength and stamina.
> > There´s also the physcological aspect, which
> > can´t be tested, he may not necessarily be a
> > sharp now as he was 3 years ago. There´s all
> > manner things that could wrong. Plus with the
> > testing ban, he can´t drive a modern F1 car.
> >
> > Massa, Schumacher and Kimi are great examples
> of
> > what I mean. Massa taken almost two years to
> get
> > back to where he was before his accident and
> only
> > missed half a season. Granted Alonso didn´t
> help
> > things, but Kubica would have the same
> situation,
> > assuming he was in a top 6 team.
> >
> > Schumacher was never anywhere near his best,
> after
> > a similar time out and a relative minor injury
> > (compared to Massa and Kubicas). We could all
> > blame the car, but there is trend going here.
> >
> > Kimi, exception to the rule. But no injury and
> he
> > is not as quick as Mclaren or Ferrari Kimi. He
> > bailed out on a move on Vettel in Bahrain. He
> > should have won that race, he even says himself
> > that Mclaren Kimi would´ve passed Vettel.
> It´s
> > taken him half a year to get his confidence
> back.
> > But in his time out, he had been competitively
> > driving the whole time and it still took him a
> bit
> > to get up to speed and he still not as quick as
> he
> > was before he left.
> >
> > Assuming Kubica gets a top 6 team seat in 2014
> > (there´s no point him going anywhere other than
> a
> > top 6 team), then realistically even at 100%
> > fitness, he is going to need 6-12 months to get
> > somewhere close to where he was before the
> > accident. That´s 12 months a top team are
> > running an average driver nearing the end of
> his
> > career. If he was still racing, he would only
> > have 4 maybe 5 years left in him. There´s
> your
> > risk. Like Grosjean, he either going to get
> the
> > hang of it and it looks like a genius move or
> he
> > doesn´t and you look stupid and directors
> don´t
> > like stupidity.
> >
> > It´s less risky the further up the grid you go.
>
> > But he would be better off in WRC than at
> > Caterham. It´s less competitive in WRC and he
> > has a greater chance of doing well there than
> in
> > F1.
>
> Regarding the psychological aspect, Robert is a
> brave man, the first racing car he got back into
> after his near death rally crashed that ruined his
> career (for now), was a rally car! and it was his
> Renault clio with a manual right hand shifter (his
> injured side) and he proved to himself that he
> still has pace, by going faster in his Renault
> Clio on a track he drove before the accident.
> since the crash, he has had another hairy
> incident, when his co-driver skippped a page of
> pace notes at the Rally du Var, and Kubica took a
> turn about 40kmh too quick. both drivers were
> unhurt, but the car caught fire and was destroyed.
> Kubica has had too many bad crashes to care
> anymore i think, he just wants to drive fast, he
> has said when his is driving, he forgets about his
> injuries.
>
> Also, strength in his arm is not his problem,
> neither is some lack of movement in his fingers,
> they are all coming along... he does rehab and
> strength work every week several times. the big
> problem is his elbow and which prevents proper
> rotation and mobility of his arm, he has had many
> operations, and even one that put prosthetics in
> his elbow which havent fixed the problem. there is
> one more potential operation which Kubica has been
> holding off, because he says his body needs a
> break from big operations, and is hoping to regain
> use by rehab first, a reporter recently asked him
> how many operations he had, and he said nearly as
> much as there are races in an f1 season.
>
> In the recent F1 magazine, the interviewer said
> Kubicas handshake was firm. Kubica has also said
> his hand condition is much better then it looks,
> its just the elbow problem......


Thanks for the information! hoping for the best for Roberts recovery and future career, hopefully in highest possible level of motorsport.

Hi everyone,
just incase you havent read the news on sites like autosport, which seems to be the only english speaking motorsport website that is following kubica on his comeback trail (probably because they are the only ones with translators and journalists of different languages), ROBERT KUBICA has anounced his 2013 Calender of racing events! which at first was assumed to only consist of ERC (The new European Rally Championship), but now includes 7 races in the World Rally Championship! He will compete those 7 events in the WRC2 class. Alongside the WRC, he will compete in 4 ERC events, including his home Poland Rally!
Kubica will drive a Citroen DS3 RRC.

The end goal is still an F1 return.

Kubicas first event for this year is at this coming weekends Canaries Islands Rally in the ERC, and on Monday he was the fastest in the Canaries Islands test! this shocked a lot of people on the day, especially the many rivals he has in the rally. The rally is an asphalt rally, so Kubica's cirsuit racing will be an advantage, and many peoploe are expecting him to win on his ERC debut.

Kubica in ERC and WRC2 this year will drive with a modified car, instead of a manual shift box, he has a FIA approved paddle shifter for the left hand (with an electronic time-delay installed on shifs as to not have an advantage over the manual shifter drivers). This is because of his current disability with his right arm - but it must be noted, in certain cars he can now manage manual shifting, he did so in a rally late last year in his renault clio. He started that rally as car "0" as to not be officially listed and to stay out of the media, but his times after proved he would have won the rally (a small national rally)
Kubica is still quite disabled on his right arm (arm rotation from the elbow), so is using his shoulder a lot for steering. On Monday in a polish interview, he said - to return to f1 at todays progress in his rehabilitation he would need about 10cm more cockpit space (half a year ago he said 20cm). He also said on the weekend that he could now drive on tracks like Barcelona in an F1 car, but not on tracks with more steering turn angle like Monaco.

Kubica is treating this season from 2 points, 1 - ongoing rehab 2- learning rally driving in the highest catergories.
2013 will be a great year for Kubica fans, first year since 2010 in top class racing! It will be a rehab year, but Kubica is setting himself up nicely for 2014 in this way: either his arm with regain enough movement for an F1 return, or: he will have gained from this years 11 rallies to enter WRC next year for a shot at the WRC championship.

Kubica is also up in the air about more surgery to his arm, at the moment he has had so much surgery, that he is giving his body a rest. He wants a year off from surgery, and just focus on racing with the body he has, last year he noted he made the most rehabilitation when he was driving in the few select Italian rallies. He is keeping more surgery as an option if it comes to it, but he hopes the surgeries so far are enough, and hoping rehab work will get his right arm back to a state ready for the highest levels of racing.

We must remember he did not just suffer a broken right arm, but a hugely severed right arm!, along with many other broken bones on the right side of Kubicas body like severely broken legs etc.

There are many youtube videos from the past days test for the canaries islands rally, and it is obvious Kubica is going to have a chance of winning it this weekend. his speed from day 1 is incredible, there are many high profile rally drivers in the event, mainly Jan Kopecky, Craig Breen and Daniel Oliveira. Kubica is a total junior compared to those guys with his limited Rally experience, but many are expecting Kubica to win. Kubica was a top level F1 Driver, and he is transferring that speed to rally driving. Rally driving is a completely different discipline (just ask Kimi Raikonnen), but Kubica seems to have a natural knack of it. Last year he made an amazing showing at Rally du Var, where he dominated the rally by several minutes, before an error from the codriver reading the stage notes ended his rally when he had a massive lead.

We will one day see Kubica in an F1 Car again, at the very least just testing to see if he can perform in it again, it is all down to his rehab. But as a fan, i am so happy to see Kubica to return to a top series racing return this year. this time last year no one had any idea of where kubica was in his rehab progress (it now turns out he was in a very very dark place with little hope and many many hours of physical work each day, and many fans were getting frustrated. i stuck by Kubica, and i hope his real fans did and still do, he nearly died and nearly had an arm amputated. he is now back in top world racing series (ERC and WRC2) and is still only 28 years old.

Kubica will still achieve much in premier motorsport series, even if that does no include f1 in the future.

One more thing, Kubica said last weekend, that alongside this years 11 rallies will be much circuit testing on circuits he knows (assumed is possibly f1 tracks).



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/20/2013 04:10PM by kubica2.

Clio = crashes
Impreza = again crashes
C4 = even more crashes
DS3 = still crashes..



[www.youtube.com]

Rallying have found from Kubica perfect replacement for Kimi.

Kimi, so, Massa Fernando Sebastian is faster than you. Can you confirm you understood that message?

You'd think he'd have learned not to crash into those particular barriers.

gav Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> You'd think he'd have learned not to crash into
> those particular barriers.

Not a first rate sense of humour... But it is allowed...

IWE = hater. go get a life- kubica was fastest on the first 8 stages against drivers who have done rallies their whole life.
kubica now in his first WRC event has finished 5th, and 1st in the WRC2 class in the portugese FAFE Rally sprint with 100,000 spectators on his first ever attempt at a gravel rally ( previous only tarmac rally experience). kubica was faster then many gravel experts on his first attempt, with a handicapped right hand.

gav Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> You'd think he'd have learned not to crash into
> those particular barriers.

If he had learned that, I think he would be markedly slower.

---

It's only after we've lost everything, that we are free to do anything.