Kubica
After Kubica’s first year at Renault showed a lot of promise, especially given the car it looks like he may have ended his career in spectacular fashion in an Italian rally. According to the BBC it seem that he may have almost lost his right hand and suffered fractures to both his right arm and leg.
With those injuries the doctors seem to be saying that he could miss the whole 2011 season, that isn’t exactly what his career needed right now but it might just be the break that Bruno Senna was dreaming of (I’m sure he wasn’t dreaming of this exact scenario though - well I hope he wasn’t, he’s not into Voodoo is he…). It is ashame for F1 if Kubica doesn’t return to the sport as he was one of the most promising drivers in the field, let’s hope he makes a full recovery.
I can’t say that the prospect of Senna or Grosjean fills me with that much excitement, maybe I’m wrong and they will step up but it does leave the VC backed, newly branded Lotus Renault outfit without a star driver, Petrov will have a lot of work to do, I wonder what Jacques Villeneuve is doing nowdays…
Good Hunting
Schumacher returns to the track
Yesterday was the first day of pre-season testing for the F1 teams and Michael Schumacher returned to the track after a three year absence, another return was that of Massa.
Both drivers impressed with Massa topping the times and Schumacher posting a faster time than Nico Rosberg, round one to Michael it seems. The Renault of Kubica seemed to be way off the pace but then Kubica can have trouble getting up to speed sometimes and this is the first day of testing - though with the limited testing that they have I’d be surprised if anyone was really just taking it slow.
With all the main teams at the test bar Red Bull it really shows that the new teams are up against it, I think it’s Virgin who’ll start testing first but it seems strange to miss days of valuable testing, perhaps they think they’ll need it later in the year.
There have also been a good few car launches over the last few days and none more low key than the Sauber launch but then they go and post the second fastest time of day 1, is this going to be a repeat of the Brawn success? I wouldn’t go that far but they may be a dark horse for the season.
Good Hunting