Kubica's Recovery

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Re: Kubica's Recovery

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Apart from us speculating Robert being able to ever drive a competitive F1 car ever again, do we really know he even wants to, deep down (apart from all the PR talking)?

Somehow I've always had a Kimi-esque feeling when looking at Kubica... and just like Kimi's years off, perhaps RK won't even mind not coming back to F1 as long as he's got a chance at a switch to WRC...

KubicaFAN
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Re: Kubica's Recovery

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Polish bullet :) :o
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6imD6_ppMjk[/youtube]

zonk
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Re: Kubica's Recovery

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Image

Image

Image

KubicaFAN
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Robert Kubica dominated the opening leg of the Rallye du Var, the highest-profile event he has entered since returning to motorsport.


The Pole was quickest on all four Friday stages of the French rally, driving the same Citroen C4 WRC that he used to win in Como last weekend.

Kubica's main rival, former World Rally Championship and Intercontinental Rally Challenge frontrunner Freddy Loix, is already 1m25s behind in his Peugeot 307 WRC in slippery conditions.

The rally continues until Sunday.

Kubica said after his Como win that he was keen to challenge himself on increasingly demanding rallies as he adapted to the Citroen World Rally Car.

He has been making a tentative motorsport comeback in domestic rallies this year as he continues his rehabilitation from the severe injuries that halted his Formula 1 career in February 2011.

Nando
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Re: Kubica's Recovery

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Take it for what you will, looks a bit iffy to me.

Robert Kubica reveals he 'can't drive single seaters'

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/20351833
"Il Phenomeno" - The one they fear the most!

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marcush.
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Re: Kubica's Recovery

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I´d interpret his words as -temporarily -limited and he is working hard to get his health and body back to full fitness.Obviously this is a race against time for him unfortunatelly and sadly...

Nando
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Re: Kubica's Recovery

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same here.
I personally think he will be back but time will tell.
He´s got more then a year to rehabilitate so we´ll see.
"Il Phenomeno" - The one they fear the most!

"2% of the world's population own 50% of the world's wealth."

netoperek
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Re: Kubica's Recovery

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marcush. wrote:I´d interpret his words as -temporarily -limited and he is working hard to get his health and body back to full fitness.Obviously this is a race against time for him unfortunatelly and sadly...
That is exactly what he has said himself, few times before.

zonk
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Image

drlamok
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Re: Kubica's Recovery

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Well.. Unfortunately he hit the tree on the 11th Stage. Better luck next time.

piast9
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Kubica said that the co-driver inadvertently flipped two pages of his notes at once and told him to drive too fast through the tight turn. The car skidded out of the road, hit the tree and caught fire. A freak accident. The crew was unhurt but the car burned quite badly.

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Undead_Mud
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Kubica Interview in Autoweek:

http://www.autoweek.com/article/20121206/f1/121209901

Autoweek: How much do you miss Formula One?
Robert Kubica: I miss it more now than I used to, say a year ago. Then I was very ill, the operations were coming one after another, and I was more concerned about how to bounce back and recover. Formula One was the last thing on my thoughts. But when I got back behind the wheel [of a rally car] last year and realized that my speed remains the same; that's when it all started. Now I find it quite hard to watch F1 on TV.
AW: Are you angry about what happened to you?
RK: Let's just say I miss racing. This is my biggest problem. When I'm busy rallying or testing, I'm not thinking about it. But when I'm at home on a Sunday evening after a Formula One race, I think I'm living a boring and monotonous life. On the other hand, you cannot get everything you desire out of life. I'm happy about where I am today. I need to keep working, keep fighting. I'm getting better, but you need a lot of time to fully recover from something like this.
AW: When did you start thinking about a return?
RK: I never imagined I wouldn't return. I was hoping that I'd be back behind the wheel of a Formula One car soon, but it didn't work out. To return at the highest level you need to constantly train, you need a lot of time behind the wheel. Now I'm doing this and in the last three months my performances have improved a lot; I hope this continues.
AW: What are your physical limitations? What can you do and not do in a car?
RK: I would say that I'm more constrained in daily life than when driving a car. I had to learn to use my left hand to operate all the switches and buttons on the dashboard. My right hand is now strong enough to hold the steering wheel. Movement is still somewhat limited, but it's enough. So I'm happy with how my body has adapted to it—and I even found my own way to go through a corner. It's incredible how the human brain and body can adapt themselves to different circumstances.
AW: Is the biggest problem the weakness in your right hand?
RK: No. If it was just about power, it could be fixed by some training at the gym. The main problem is the mobility of my elbow and wrist. I still find it difficult to move my right arm. I had several operations that were meant to improve this issue, but there's not been a spectacular improvement.
AW: So is Formula One a closed door?
RK: If I can move my arm again, there is a chance that I will return. But until that happens, we'll have to see. There's no chance of me coming back to Formula One soon.
Editor's note: Though Kubica is driving a rally car, there are three main issues preventing his return to F1:
1. Limited mobility. He can't move his forearm well so uses the whole of his arm to turn a steering wheel and get around a corner. Because there's more cockpit space in a rally car, it allows him to maximize his mobility in a way that he would be unable to do in the cramped confines of an F1 car.
2. Lack of precision in his hands. There are 20-odd small buttons and switches in a modern F1 car, which control settings such as engine maps, brake bias, etc.—and there's nowhere else to put them other than on the steering wheel. Kubica doesn't have the dexterity in his hands to operate those little buttons in an F1 car, but that's not the case in a rally car.
3. G-forces. These are much lower in a rally car, which means that his arms can operate with less physical resistance than they would encounter in an F1 machine.
AW: What will you do instead?
RK: I don't know—but I will make a decision very soon. My name still means something, so it would be relatively easy to find a place in touring cars or endurance racing, I think. If I go down that road, I can expect some good results: I've got 20 years of circuit racing experience behind me to fall back on. If I choose rallying, it's going to be a different story. In terms of experience, I'm practically nobody. I'll need two or three years to learn to get to the highest level.
AW: So are you aiming for next year's World Rally Championship?
RK: No, it's not about that at all. If I really go for rallying, the 2013 season will be all about learning, with no other goal than to drive as much as possible and gain experience. If I'm in the World Rally Championship next year, I'm not expecting to fight for top results. We're talking with people at the moment, and everything will be decided by the end of the year.
AW: How will you choose?
RK: It depends on the opportunities I find. I don't want to spend a year in the World Rally Championship only to find out in November next year that I have no idea what I'm doing in 2014. If I choose rallying, it needs to be a long-term program that allows me to learn. I can't do what I did in Formula One before the accident, so I must choose a new direction, make the next step in my career. We'll see what it is.
AW: How do you manage to stay so positive and optimistic?
RK: Well, I'm probably not as optimistic as most people think! It's difficult to explain. I don't want to delve into what happened, to think about what I went through and so on. We have to live with what [we] have; we don't have a choice. When you're in [the] hospital and meet people who have no chance at all, you start to see life differently. Often, we don't appreciate what we have. When you're in a hospital bed and cannot get up, even the simplest things bring you happiness. So you start to appreciate and enjoy everything you have. Even if it's not what you dreamed of.”

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WhiteBlue
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Good luck to Robert, whatever he does and all the best for his further recovery. We miss him in F1 and hope he will one day get back to championship glory wherever he goes.
Formula One's fundamental ethos is about success coming to those with the most ingenious engineering and best .............................. organization, not to those with the biggest budget. (Dave Richards)

stefan_
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Re: Kubica's Recovery

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I am really glad to see that Robert is realistic about his situation and consideres other competitions rather than having an ultimate goal (that might be unrealistic) of returning to Formula 1 and not doing anything else.

I am still amazed by the amount of bad luck that he had having that accident and the barrier going straight through where it wasn't suppose to. I hope we will see him again driving around in an F1 car, even if just for a friday practice session.
"...and there, very much in flames, is Jacques Laffite's Ligier. That's obviously a turbo blaze, and of course, Laffite will be able to see that conflagration in his mirrors... he is coolly parking the car somewhere safe." Murray Walker, San Marino 1985

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Websta
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stefan_ wrote:I am still amazed by the amount of bad luck that he had having that accident and the barrier going straight through where it wasn't suppose to.
It is amazing how unlucky his accident was, but how incredibly lucky he was that the barrier didn't impact his torso or head, and that he managed to survive the injuries he did sustain.