Kubica wins Acropolis Rally in WRC2 class

by the way IWE,
you forgot to mention that in that time how he also won 2 rallies, and this good result this week, plus the rally in the clio which he entered as number 0 and was unnoficially quickest. also the fact kubica tested with ford late last year and was faster then fords factory drivers in the test - that is no Kimi Raikonnen! also you didnt mention the reasons of the crashes, 1 was a terrible pace note error - nor do you even realise that kubica doesnt care for results, he is learning how to drive rallies, so may sometimes go over the limit or make an error - he does not care about the results at this moment, he cares more about his rehabilitation.

Kubica may have more crashes, he is spending this year learning about rallying.

You can see his learning curve even this past weekend, over 3 passes of the Special Stage, he improved by 9 seconds from the first pass. he previously only had 40km of gravel testing according to him, and he is already faster then many who have done it there whole life
here is the SS1 from this past weekend, and the 2nd video is from ss3, you can see how he adapted so quick to gravel driving:
SS1



SS3




a nice fan video of kubica, there were 100,000 people at the rally!




great photos:
[4.bp.blogspot.com]
[4.bp.blogspot.com]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/08/2013 06:17PM by kubica2.

Problem is that you simply cannot compare RRC cars to anything. Those are far away from WRC cars but again clearly better on any surface compared to rest of classes. His test times are samekind urban legend as McRae being faster in F1 than Jordan's racing drivers. And his victories are from rallies where he have been only WRC pilot along with some other random hobbyists. Rest of drivers have been driving all kind of junk from antique cars to S1600 fwd cars.

Still have to say he (Kubica) is rallying god and super talent compared for example to Kimi or some other millionaire drivers who have bought best possible toys and are just hanging around. I'm really looking forward to see him live at Neste Oil Rally later this year.

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



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/08/2013 08:01PM by IWE.

Kubica2 you should have been here long enough to know, that it is a time honoured tradition here at GPG, to stomp on the idols of users to wind them up. As long as you allow him, in this case IWE, to grab your mental state, he is in effect controlling you. Don't be reactive. Just do what you want to do.

---

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

Morbid Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Kubica2 you should have been here long enough to
> know, that it is a time honoured tradition here at
> GPG, to stomp on the idols of users to wind them
> up.

No offence, but +1.

Morbid, you are right! i used to be one of those, i stopped that mainly, now i usually think posiitive views are better then highlighting the negatives.
We shall see how Kubica gets along in his first WRC start this week. i am hopeing a top 3 in his WRC2 class, but who knows - so far each time out he drives faster then established drivers in similar class cars (Rally du Var drivers werent all random hobbyists, nor were they at the last ERC Canaries Islands rally).

Here is video out today, and interview with Colin Clark talking to Kubica prepaping for this weeks Portugal Rally. i suppose its one of his first English interviews since the accident.... over 2 years. This will be his interational racing return this weekend. Kubica is still only 28 years old/

Wrong forum surely?

Kubica was fastest today of the WRC2 class drivers in the shakedown for this weekends WRC Rally Portugal.

In a video i posted above, Kubica admits he only has about 350km of gravel experience. this Rally Portugal is 400km+ of stages on gravel. talk about being thrown in the deep end! Kubica has never contested a rally this long, and never one on gravel, and never any WRC level rally, and he has a handicapped right hand/arm - go show 'em ýour natural talent Robert!

Kubicas goal is to finish, his speed seems to be prodigious even in rally, yesterday he said there is hardly anything inline with rally and F1 and he is constantly learning new skills. he is mainly concentrate on trying to finish this rally above anything else - so that he can gain many kilometers experience in rally. there are a couple of monster stages about 50km each at the end of the rally which Kubica has never done of that length also.

Pretty good start from Kubica. 5th of WRC2 class (4th from those who are registered in championship) and now really being surrounded by "pro's".

Still pretty messed up from FIA to have all 4wd cars (excluding WRC-cars) stuffed into one group.




EDIT: And already on 2nd stage he managed to damage his car. He drove off from road and had to stop after stage to fix the radiator.

[youtu.be]



EDIT2: 2nd of WRC2 after stage4. Very good result, but shows also what kind joke WRC2 is with allowing cars with turbos to compete against basic S2000 cars. Why not putting LMP1 and LMP2 cars into one and same class or F1 with GP2?

EDIT3: He retired before last stage of the day because of running out of tires (after destroying so many of them). Partly also explains his good position before retirement as in this kind events drivers are compromising their speed to protect their tires.

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



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 04/13/2013 02:23AM by IWE.

Here is a video of kubicas off from day one:




he was making excellent progress on his learning curve on gravel, from about 1 minute behind leading WRC2 driver in first stage, to less then one second behind by stage 4!
.
@IWE edit 2 - 1.6 turbos vs s2000, not much difference in power though different torgue curves, sometimes the RRC will be faster, other times S2000, it is stupid but, just give them all the same spec! there are other categorie cars also under the WRC2 banner.
@IWE edit 3 - his speed was genuine, kubica got punctures because of going slightly off track and clipping things - he is a gravel rally rookie afterall. Kubica has said he is not pushing too hard and is driving to finish, but has aknowledged he has never driven of a surface with so little grip, so errors are to be expected when driving at kubicas speed and skill level. also yesterday there was about 500km of driving between Special stages, that is a huge amount, the tyre failed about 50km from Lisbon for the last special stage, which was more a demonstration run.

Kubica is driving again today, but with a 10 minute penalty for using up the tyres yesterday because of punctures as IWE wrote.

He missed yesterdays stage 5 because of the tyre failure on the way to the stage

he has got through to the end of stage 8 today.
during stage 6, he suffered a shifter and hydraulic problem of some sort, at first his modified left hand paddle shift failed, so he has been using the right hand manual shifter (With his still handicapped right hand), and the gearbox is changing very heavy and slow. also the handbrake failed also which he couldnt use in stage 7 and 8.
Kubica drove slower in stages 6 to 8 compared to other WRC2 drivers because of the problems, but he said it was a good workout for his right hand! There is now a service after stage 8, so hopefully the shifter issue will be fixed.


the aim is to finish the rally, i hope he can do it!

Edit: the car problems are siad to be serious, hydraulic, gearbox shifting, and hand brake (i am not sure where the hydraulics are related to the gearbox, but definite shift problems and handbrake problems also)

stage 9 begins now. hopefuly kubicas car and tyres are somewhat repaired now and he can do some competitive times whilst still learning about gravel driving.

edit 2: with kubicas car havind some repairs, kubica was quickest through the 4th checkpoint of stage 9 of the WRC2 drivers by 2 seconds! but.... by the end of the stage he lost some time for some reason. he came 3rd in the stage in his WRC2 class - 1.2 seconds behind the 2nd driver and 11.2 behind the first driver.

edit 3 the rally is over for kubica - a differential failure on stage 10

a very colourful first WRC event for kubica, great pace at a few points, but many problems, tyres, gearbox, hydraulics, handbrake and differential failure at the end.

edit 4 the car was repaired for day 3. kubica was immediately 2nd fastest in WRC2 on one stage, and then 3rd on 2 others. he for the first times drove such long stages in rallying (2 stages were over 50km). mighty impressive for a gravel rally first timer.

Kubica finished the Portugese Rally 6th in the WRC2 class and 20th overall. had he not got the time penalty on day one, he wouild have been in top 3 of WRC2 and 11th overall.

Kubica has 3 more schuduled ERC rallies, and 6 more WRC rallies this year, but he has already spoken of including at least 1 or even 2 more rallies to his program, 1 more in ERC and 1 more in WRC. i think fans will want to see a few top 3 results in WRC2 and a win or 2 in ERC going by what he has shown so far.



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 04/15/2013 02:57PM by kubica2.

Hi Guys,

Kubicas second ERC event begins today.
Rally Acores.
It is his second ever gravel rally, after 2 weeks ago WRC portugal rally. He has had at most 1000km in his life, driving on gravel now in the past rally and testing.
In his first ever try driving on wet unsealed roads in a rally car (all previous tests were in the dry), Kubica has qualified first, and 5 seconds ahead of Jan Kopecky, the favourite for this rally, on the 3.27km qualifying stage.
kopecky and Breen were said to have slowed down on their runs at the end, and kubica was intending to do so too, its all about getting the running order for the rally. kubica ended up pushing for the whole stage, because he ran a new car setup he wanted to test. either way, he was up their as the fastest even if he had slowed.
Here is a video from the qualifying, including long onboard with Kubica:
[www.fiaerc.com]

EDIT: the first stage was cancelled on the rally, the next 3 for day one were all won by Kubica. pretty phenomenal.
watch his gravel driving style here, from the Superstage 4, which he won, not bad for someone with so little experience - having only started his gravel career a few weeks ago:


&feature=youtu.be

Also in a few German newsagencies this week it was reported that Kubica has been testing Mercedes F1 simulator. he has apparently done more then 5000km. this is probably genuine news, as Kubica recently said he could race at most circuits, but would need about 10cm more cockpit space for tracks like Monaco, so he must know that from testing somewhere.
Some Kubica fans have been jumping the gun and making predictions like a Hamilton-Kubica partnership next year,blah blah, but more reasonable, it is probably just Mercedes being generous in Kubicas recovery process, and hopeing to get feedback on their simulator in return, and possbly they can do some work together for their 2014 car. this wont lead to a race drive, but maybe a test in a real f1 car again if his rehab continues possitively,



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 04/25/2013 08:27PM by kubica2.

[youtu.be]

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

@ IWE,
your a great racing fan, pointing out only negatives of A driver coming back to the top of motorsport after nearly dieing and having about 20 operations. so heartfelt.

Kubica last weekend won the WRC2 class of possibly the hardest rally in the world, the Acropolis, in only his 3rd ever gravel rally.

as IWE pointed out, but in a trolling way, kubica is on a learning curve - everyone knows he will crash, as he is taking his rally learning curve serious, so he needs to go over the limit to learn.

I havent been putting up many posts now in this thread, because Kubica's progress is now all in the media. when i started this thread it was to show to people his progress after his crash, because it wasnt reported well in the western media. now it is, so i dont need to, now Kubica is doing the talking. Kubica told IWE to shut up this past weekend, as he will many more times during his comeback, as he is much more positive minded then IWE ever will be.

Kubica has one more ERC event this year in his 4 event program - the Polish rally, where he will be the headline act. Kubica has led all 3 of his first 3 ERC events, but not finished because of his errors or mechanical problems - yet his speed is prodigious even though Kubica says he is not caring for results, just caring about learning how to drive in Rallies.

Kubica also has 5 more WRC events this year in WRC2 class. If he finished in the top 3 of those, he could end up champion of the series at the end of the year, though that is not his aim, his aim is his rehabilitation, and also "learning" as his goals are big in rally if he cant make it back to f1 - - SO EXPECT MORE CRASHES IWE !!

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Kubicas future is finally looking very bright after 2.5 hard years. Kubica is climbing up the rally ranks at a stupendous rate, and is still making slow progress with his injuries. He is driving the Mercedes F1 simulator - which isnt a secret anymore, gauging his progress for a possible return to the cockpit - which is his ultimate goal. He is also doing the best with what he has - he could have gone down the easy touring car route for the rest of his career, instead he has decided to make a full on attack in rallying, as a complete rookie. in the next year or 2 we will either see him back in f1, or fighting for the World Rally Championship. He can still be a world champion, he is only 28.

As to his injuries - the worst is still the elbow wITH the arm rotation - but is getting better still. the hand looks the worst from outside to viewers when we see him on camera, as it is quite limp, but the visual is worse then reality, his grip is strong between thumb and index fiNger, which is what he mainly uses with right hand when holding steering wheel, while the middle finger and ring and pinky have less feeling, the middle the worst, as that is where the severing started, between index and middle and up the hand and arm. he can move them all independently but. kubica has said he can drive one handed with his damaged arm, so it is better then it looks. the only thing limiting the cockpit driving is the arm rotation, but it is still getting better.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/06/2013 05:54PM by kubica2.

I <3 you too.

Btw, great drive from Kubica like you said.

In less than 2 months I will be following his driving live at the special-stages. Interesting to see how he will do as Kimi drove 3 times in Neste Oil Rally and failed to finish even once without crashing.

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