Formula One star Robert Kubica has been seriously injured while competing in a rally in Italy.
The Lotus Renault driver, 26, was 4.6km into the stage in a Skoda Fabia when the car went off the road and hit a wall.
His co-driver Jacub Gerber got out unhurt while Kubica had to be extracted and taken by helicopter to hospital.
There were no immediate details of his injuries but a Renault spokesman confirmed he was conscious. The Sun
Local health authority officials in Italy said Kubica’s life was not in danger, and that the worst damage appeared to be to his limbs.
“Certainly it is a very delicate situation, as the first hours always are after a huge trauma, one in which there could also have been a strong bleeding,” Roberto Carrozzino, a local health authority official, told Sky Italia.
The ANSA news agency reported that an operation on the 26-year-old driver began just before 1300 GMT after professor Igor Rossello, a hand specialist, was called to the hospital.
Kubica, eighth in last year’s F1 world championship, now looks unlikely to race at Bahrain on March 13.
His team said in a statement that Kubica “suffered an accident at high speed this morning while competing in the Ronde di Andora Rally” and was “airlifted to Pietra Ligure Hospital, where he is currently undergoing medical checks.”
Carrozzino said the driver underwent an examination to assess any possible damage to internal organs and the brain. Asked about a report that one his arms would be amputated, Carrozzino said that “all assessments have yet to be made.”
“An amputation is not a decision that is made so rapidly,” he said. “I do not confirm or deny this report.” USA Today
UPDATE: February 8, 2011 11:49 am
It will be a year before injured Formula One ace Robert Kubica regains full use of his smashed right hand, doctors said today.
But the Polish star’s Lotus Renault team, whose plans have been thrown into chaos by his huge rally crash, believe the medics are being overly cautious.
They conceded only that he would be out of F1 “for at least a couple of months”.
Kubica, 26, hit a church wall at high speed while competing in Italy’s Ronde di Andora rally in a Skoda Fabia.
He suffered serious injuries to his right arm, shoulder and leg.
Surgeons at the Santa Corona hospital near Genoa saved his hand from amputation in a seven-hour operation.
But he will need further surgery on his elbow and shoulder.
Dr Giorgio Barabino, head of the hospital’s intensive care unit, said: “Kubica is conscious. He talks and understands what has happened.”
“Things are going well considering there was substantial damage. Kubica lost a lot of blood.” The Sun
“The patient will have to undergo more surgery, not only on the parts already treated, but also for other problems and traumas he suffered, which we couldn’t work on because of the emergency,” said Dr Francesco Lanza, the director of orthopaedics at the Santa Corona hospital in Pietra Ligure where Kubica is in intensive care.
“The important thing was to stabilise the patient and to pad the biggest wounds. For the fractures suffered on his leg, he will need at least three or four months to allow the bone to set back together.”
Kubica was briefly woken from a medically-induced coma on Monday and informed of the extent of his injuries. The driver’s first concern was for his co-driver Jakub Gerber, who was uninjured in the crash.
The Renault team principal, Eric Boullier, who travelled to Italy to visit Kubica, is confident that his driver, of whom much was expected this season following fast times in the first pre-season test, would be back behind the wheel much sooner than a year, as predicted by the doctors treating him.
“Robert is doing better this morning and he is actually in the process of being woken up,” he told the BBC. “There has already been some good communication with the doctors. Obviously when you have a big crash like he had, doctors always predict the worst case scenario. The Guardian
With the first race of the new Formula One season in Bahrain next month, his Lotus Renault team defended Kubica’s decision to take part in a rally so close to the start of the season.
“He loves rallying,” team boss Eric Boullier said. “We knew the risks and so did he. We didn’t want a robot or a corporate man for a driver. It was agreed.”
Support has been offered from throughout the close-knit world of F1 for the only Polish driver to have ever driven at this level, including a specially-designed “Twibbon” on the social-networking site Twitter.
McLaren’s 2009 world champion Jenson Button tweeted, “Shocking news about Robert Kubica. I wish him a speedy recovery.”
Another driver to offer his sympathies was Williams’ veteran Brazilian Rubens Barrichello, who used his Twitter blog to say, “I would like to ask you for your best wishes to Kubica,” and “we all like him and he deserves all the best.” CNN International
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