Back in February 2011 Formula 1 racing driver and upcoming star, Robert Kubica had a serious crash whilst rallying in the off season. Here is my blog about Robert Kubica's crash.
Very much like his fellow driver Felippe Massa's near death experience with a piece of debris entering his cranium, Robert's injury put all of Formula 1's eyes on him. Unlike Felippe, Robert was unable (so far!) to return to the pinnacle of open wheel racing, which is Formula 1.
But good news! Robert is back to racing.
Autosport had this to say:
Robert Kubica took victory on his return to competition in an Italian domestic rally on Sunday. The event was the first motorsport contest the Pole had entered since sustaining horrific injuries in a rally accident in Italy in February 2011. ...Kubica won all four stages of the Ronde Gomitolo di Lana rally to claim victory by nearly a minute over Omar Bergo's WRC Mini.
Before the start of the rally, Kubica told Italian television channel SkySport24 that the event marked the start of "a more active phase" in a recovery that he still hopes will bring him back to Formula 1 eventually.
And we're all sitting here waiting for your return sir!
There has been a lot of talk in the Formula 1 world about who is going to be in which seat next year. Fair enough, we're now off season, the teams need sponsors and as such they need to create content for the newspapers to advertise that they still exist.
Which isn't the case for Renault. Robert's team have changed their name, officially, to Lotus-Renault GP - aka 'Lotus'. For me that simply signals that they have a new sponsor.
So no more Renault, they are now Lotus.
So where does Robert fit in to all of this?
Eric Boullier has already stated, after signing Kimi Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean for 2012, that the team’s relationship with Kubica is at ‘point zero’, making it increasingly unlikely that Kubica will return to Formula 1 with Lotus. Since then, the Pole has been very keen to quickly demonstrate that he is fit enough to return to Formula 1.
Team principal Boullier had already admitted that they are not going to help him regain form if he is not committed to the team, saying "I will not bring a car for him and make a nice test for him if in 2013 he has signed already an option elsewhere".
- teamspeed.com
So things are now up in the air.
We shall see what happens to Renault Lotus in 2012. They dumped both of their drivers from this year and their name. What are they running away from??!!
Actually I'll allow the masterly Joe Saward in his Grand Prix Blog explain it. The mixture of love for Formula 1, in it's purer form, and the desire or need to blog;
Blogs are about opinions, not just straight journalism… I would rather write of the good things that Grand Prix racing has to offer, rather than the latest sleazy scandal. .... It is a universal truth that those who live by the sword must accept that they will likely die by the sword as well. Flav knew the rules of the game and he has only himself to blame if he has been caught.
And he continues straight into the meat of the matter, and the reason that I was shaking my head last night and kept telling Her Indoors (aka Mrs Jumblerant) 'I don't get it, I just don't understand why they did it'.
The sordid tale of Singapore 2008 has no place in F1. It is a tale of miserable cynical people, people with no souls. Where is the passion in doing such things? Where is the joy? Where is the pride? Where is the honour? It was all just to keep them on the Renault gravy train. To keep their jobs when they did not deserve to be kept....
Winning is not about finishing first, winning is about passion, about pride, about the joy and the thrill of the contest.
And if you have to manufacture that, then you are lost… and have no place in the sport.
Yes Joe, that is how I feel. And thank you for putting it so eloquently. That is why I read your blog.
So, what the gosh darned rooting tooting is that title all about then?
I am a fan of Formula 1. Any sport that can end in serious pain if you make a mistake gets my attention. Formula 1 has the added draw of having a large amount of information flowing throughout the year and not just on race day.
Crashes are not uncommon but generally do not alter the final result as they either happen at the first corner to some back markers or later on in the race to a couple of cars who are fighting for position and then take each other out.
There are some famous crashes such as Roland Ratzenberger and Ayrton deSilva Senna's fatal crashes (in the same weekend), as well as Michael Schumacher taking himself or nearest competitor out, and a couple of beauties when cars went, literally, flying over others.
That's not the point though. The level of danger involved is the point.
Any crash involves pieces of car flying at high speed in all directions. This allows the energy in the crash to dissipate without harming the driver. But it also means that basically, bits go flying everywhere. Tyres have landed in the crowd killing spectators and we are coming to terms, in F1, with the fact that Felipe Massa is going to be out for the rest of the season because he was hit in the head by a piece of debris that fell off another car in front of his during a practice session.
He was hit in the helmet with a 800g piece of coiled metal at over 180mph that left him unconscious. He is recovering now and has a beautiful scar (above) to tell the tale.
And that is where today's revelations leave me with my mouth agape and my mind not comprehending what happened.
Nelson Piquet Jr.'s intentional crash, in the the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix.
Today it was revealed that one team, Renault, had asked one of its drivers, Nelson Piquet Jr., to crash on purpose. The FIA stated that Renault had planned and carried out actions:
to cause an intentional accident with the aim of causing the deployment of the safety car to the advantage of their other driver, Fernando Alonso, who went on to win.
The team stated
“The ING Renault F1 Team will not dispute the recent allegations made by the F.I.A. concerning the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix,”
Which is pretty damn shameful, dangerous and ultimately, suicidal for the careers of those involved.
So what also gets my goat here, and you may notice that I'm still very annoyed and shocked by it all, is that they actually thought that they could get away with it.
In an industry where millions of dollars hang in the balance for every point a driver can make people are going to be ruthless. And they are going to have very long memories.
The chap on the left, Flavio 'Flav' Briatore, has been in Formula 1 for a very long time. He helped to bring Michael Schumacher into the limelight. He was teh Team leader for Renault.
The chap on the left is Pat Symonds. He too has been in F1 forever and he was Flav's no. 2 man.
Today they both left their current (and probably last) Formula 1 team after the team admitted that these two individuals had in fact conspired with their no. 2 driver, Nelson Piquet Jr., to alter the outcome of the race.
