June 10, 2007

ROBERT KUBICA UPDATE

The Montreal Grand Prix was an outstanding race, but it was marred by the horrendous crash of Robert Kubica. I'll be honest, at first I thought he was dead.

It wasn't that it was a spectacular accident with pieces flying everywhere: as Steven mentions in the comments, those are the BEST kind of crashes, since the disintigration of the car releases energy that otherwise would go into the driver.

The head-first impact and resulting tumble was what scared me the most. The shedding of pieces was great, but it can also be a danger, and it looked to me like Kubica had a piece of wreckage in the cockpit with him (watch what flips over after the hulk turns back over). I didn't even notice that the BMW clipped Scott Speed's parked Toro Rosso before it first hit the wall, removing Kubica's front-right wheel.

After the car came to a halt, the fact that Kubica was completely motionless except for his limp arms falling to the side of the cockpit, making no attempt to pull himself out of the remains of his vehicle, frightened me perhaps more than anything.

As such, I'm thrilled and happy to report that Robert Kubica has suffered just a concussion and a sprained ankle. The titanium bathtub and the HANS device that keeps the driver's head from bashing around in the cockpit did their jobs. I can't imagine that he'll be cleared to drive in the USGP, but we'll be seeing him again this season.

I still can't believe it.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 01:46 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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1 When he hit the wall there was an amazing shower of debris that went flying. There's no doubt at all that's what saved his life.

That isn't the one you referred to as the "wall of champions", right?

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at June 10, 2007 02:00 PM (+rSRq)

2 No, this was at Turns 9 & 10 (not 7/8, like I said earlier). The "Wall of Champions" is after turn 15, at the beginning of the start/finish straight.

I've never actually seen someone hit this particular wall before.

Posted by: Wonderduck at June 10, 2007 02:15 PM (A5s0y)

3 Have you noticed that the crash made Trulli to go weak in the head? He started to drive erratically and eventually crashed. In immediate interview he said: "I lost concentration and drove into the wall in turn 12. But who cares about the race after THIS." He seemed to mean the accident, clearly, but the Toyota spin machine tried to make it sound later as if the meant the poor weekend overall. Also, his post-race quote was edited to make it sound benign.

Afterwards, he was the only member of other team to visit Kubica in the hospital.

Think Toyota will replace him due to mental issues for Indy?

Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at June 11, 2007 03:26 PM (9imyF)

4 I'll agree with you there... when the car slid to a stop, I thought he was gone. I had flashbacks of Senna... the information "vacuum" that followed the accident, the fact that they were telling you nothing and you never saw him removed from the car. He's incredibly lucky to be alive, and I really didn't need to witness another F1 death live on TV.

Posted by: madmike at June 13, 2007 05:01 AM (o+iiH)

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