Robert Kubica is slowly coming to terms with his injures and the lost opportunity of 2011.
That is the admission of the Pole’s manager Daniele Morelli, after Renault said on Tuesday that an improving Kubica “reacted well to the news about his condition and is ready to fight for his comeback”.

The reality, however, is that while the alarming medical bulletins have eased, the 26-year-old will be in hospital for weeks at least.

And there remain question-marks not about the future functionality of his right arm that was partially severed during a minor rally event last Sunday, but also his other injured limbs.

Morelli was one of the few people able to speak with Kubica on Tuesday while doctors eased pain sedatives in order to gauge the grand prix winner’s neurological condition.

“I told him about the accident, and the extent of his fractures and injuries, and Robert was shocked,” Morelli is quoted by O Estado de S.Paulo.

“He understood that he will be out (of F1) for quite a long time and he is suffering with that,” Kubica’s manager admitted.

“He would have already been driving the new car again at Jerez,” added Morelli.

At the end of his first stint with the new R31, Kubica ended the Valencia test last week with the fastest time overall.

“It’s the first time a team has conceived a car with Robert integrally in mind,” Morelli continued.

For F1, it is a tragedy that the R31/Kubica combination might have been a true title contender, but Morelli said the overriding feeling at present is relief.

“We are happy because for the first 12 hours the question was whether Robert would survive. When he reached the hospital his condition was critical,” he revealed.

“But now we are planning already to leave the ICU,” said Morelli.

Kubica’s manager also acknowledged the debate at present about the wisdom of combining being a full-time F1 driver with the much more dangerous pursuit of road rallying.

“Robert loves rallying, and he had done the previous 12 without any problems. Actually, I hadn’t thought about that — it looks like this was number 13,” he said.

13 is considered such bad luck that no competitor uses the number on the F1 grid.

And Morelli said Kubica’s reported EUR 6 million retainer for the 2011 season is the least of his concerns.

“Every driver has insurance,” he revealed, “but this is the matter that concerns us the least of all.

“We are all conscious of what lies ahead, the effort that is going to be put to have Robert sitting in a cockpit once again,” added Morelli.

Jerome d’Ambrosio’s F1 mechanics have given the Belgian rookie a flavoursome new nickname.
In the Virgin garage, the 25-year-old is now affectionately known as ‘Custard’, with the word pasted on his cockpit when he began testing for the 2011 season at Valencia last week.

Ambrosia is a well-known UK brand of custard and rice pudding.

“It just shows I fit in the team pretty well straight way, so I’m happy,” d’Ambrosio is quoted as saying by The Sun.

He is the first Belgian to race in F1 since Bertrand Gachot in 1995, even though Gachot was actually born in Luxembourg and carried a French passport.

But d’Ambrosio is not so bold as to predict that his presence will now help to secure the future of the Belgian grand prix at famous Spa-Francorchamps.

“I won’t have the arrogance to say that I will bring back Spa to the old days by myself,” he insisted.

“But for sure it will be something positive and hopefully we will be able to build on that.”

Christian Klien’s manager has admitted he would like to see the Austrian driver in consideration for the remaining F1 race seats in 2011.

Already hoping to secure the second race seat at HRT, 28-year-old Klien’s name has also been casually linked with Renault following injured Robert Kubica’s rally crash.

“Until now, HRT was the only team with a free cockpit,” Roman Rummenigge, who manages the former Jaguar and Red Bull driver, told the Austrian news agency APA.

Klien has also been a test driver with departed BMW and Honda, and was arguably the quickest of HRT’s multiple drivers last year as he sat in for the struggling Spanish team’s regulars on three occasions.

“After the drama with Kubica I must of course follow my duty as manager and also consider Renault as an option,” insisted Rummenigge.

However, Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport claims that of all the reported candidates, the favourite for Kubica’s number 9 cockpit is the grand prix veteran Nick Heidfeld.

The report said the 33-year-old was last week “on the verge” of returning to Mercedes in 2011 as reserve driver, “but since Robert Kubica’s accident, those plans have been postponed”.

There are more than three candidates to race injured Robert Kubica’s Renault in 2011, team boss Eric Boullier has clarified.
Reports on Tuesday said the Frenchman had shortlisted only Bruno Senna, Nick Heidfeld and Vitantonio Liuzzi to become Vitaly Petrov’s new teammate until Kubica is ready to return to the R31.

“Senna, Heidfeld and Liuzzi?” Boullier is quoted by the Spanish sports newspaper Marca.

“We have talked with them, but there are others that we have also spoken with who are in perfect condition to drive the car,” he insisted.

A report by the Spanish news agency EFE said Pedro de la Rosa is one of the others who has been contacted.

“If I were Renault right now I would take Pedro de la Rosa,” said former McLaren driver Mark Blundell on Twitter, “as he has more Pirelli experience than all the current guys.”

But a team spokesman said the Lotus-backed outfit is in no rush to choose from the list of candidates.

“It is too early to talk about it,” he is quoted by Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport.

“There is still five weeks until the first race, so we still have some time to make a decision,” he added.

Either Bruno Senna or Romain Grosjean, Renault’s two third drivers, will replace Kubica at this week’s Jerez test.

The Force India VJM04 is the first car created by the team under its new technical director Andrew Green, who exactly 20 years ago was one of the men behind the original Jordan 191.

Green and rest of the Silverstone-based teamForce India on Tuesday brought up by the rear by becoming the last formula one team to reveal its 2011 car.

After some website glitches, the VJM04 was launched online by the Silverstone based team.

“Everything is different, but visually a lot of it is subtle,” insisted the team’s new technical director Andy Green.

The most obvious change to the car compared with its predecessor is the switch from a conventional roll-hoop to a Team Lotus-style ‘blade’ solution.

“But there are a lot of (other) differences under the skin that people won’t necessarily notice,” added Green.

The Mercedes-powered car will debut at Jerez on Thursday.

faced major challenges created by the changes in the 2011 FIA Technical Regulations, with a cut in downforce and the movable rear wing chief among them. In addition Pirelli has become the new tyre supplier, and the teams have agreed to allow the use of KERS again. The result is a car that is very different from its predecessor.

‘Everything is different, but visually a lot of it is subtle,’ says Green, who re-joined the team in July 2010. ‘The most obvious visual change is that we’ve gone away from a conventional roll-hoop to a blade. This gives us a small packaging improvement compared to a more conventional style. The engine cover is different, in-line with the abolition of the F-duct system. But there are a lot of differences under the skin that people won’t necessarily notice.’
Force India VJM04

The ban on double diffusers and other changes in the rules created a drastic cut in downforce at the rear of the car. Getting it back has been one of the major challenges of the winter.

‘We’ve recovered a lot of the aerodynamic performance, we believe. We still have a little bit to go, but we are still in the process of the realignment after the end of last season, because it does take a long time to move aerodynamically from one position to another. The movable wing is a whole new game, and we’ll be trying to exploit its performance to the max.

‘We’ve also put in a lot of work trying to maximise the potential performance of the new Pirelli tyre compounds. To this end we’ve recruited a new senior tyre engineer, Jun Matsusaki, to guide us through the development process. The test we recently conducted in Valencia was a good learning exercise.

‘Exhaust management will also be a big area of development this year. There will be an upgrade for the first race, so there are some changes that will come into effect at the Bahrain test. Further down the line there are some big updates for the front of the car coming in for the first European race.’
Force India VJM04

Significantly the team has done far more than simply address the new rules. It has also gone back to basics by taking a close look at the fundamentals of last year’s package, and attempted to address key areas of concern.

‘Towards the end of last season there was a drop-off in our relative performance,’ says Green. ‘In theory we were adding performance to the car, but it wasn’t getting translated to the track. We decided to have a very close look at what was happening on the car, and what could be causing this. The bottom line is we didn’t extract the most from the blown diffuser, thus over the winter we’ve taken a reasonable philosophy chance on the aerodynamics of the car in order to try and prevent the sort of drop-off in performance that we saw at the end of last year.’

In addition the team has focussed on improving its performance in high downforce spec.

‘Looking back over the years the cars we have produced here have always struggled at the high downforce tracks – they always been ‘slippery’ cars. We’ve identified a problem, and now we have to fix it, and it means that potentially there’s another strategic aero change coming as well.’

Underlining the team’s renewed focus on aerodynamic development, there will extra emphasis on gathering data on the Fridays of race weekends.

‘We are going to be using the real car at the track as a validation tool for the aerodynamics, which is something that we haven’t done effectively before. There’s a lot more focus on what’s actually happening on the car aerodynamically. To measure it at the fidelity that we need to measure it at is a huge task.

‘We understand how important it is, and we’re in that game now as well. That will start to feed back into the aerodynamic development of the car. When we get positive results it backs up our development tools, and when we don’t, we’ll investigate why. Fridays will be a lot more about understanding the car we have as well as understanding the track at the time and the tyres you’re running.’

The change requires more accurate sensors and different procedures for gathering data, better analysis tools, and dedicated people at the trackside focussing on the aerodynamic performance.

Force India is not entirely new to KERS. The 2009 car was designed to utilise the Mercedes system and the team ran it in testing, although it was never raced.

‘The Mercedes KERS system looks very strong, and we’re really happy with it. We’ve done a lot of running in the simulator, so the drivers are well up to speed with how to use it. We’re well developed with what we have to do for harvesting and deployment. It’s smaller and lighter than in 2009, and packaging required very few vehicle compromises.’

Summing up, Green says the intention is to build momentum over the course of the year as developments come on stream, and the aero work pays dividends.

‘There are some big developments in the pipeline, probably bigger than this team has seen for quite a while. I think we’re looking for a much stronger finish to the season, and we do recognise the fact that there’s an Indian GP on the calendar, and we are an Indian team. The plan is to be putting stronger performance on the car through the year that will lift us up the ranks.’

Anthony Davidson has reportedly ruled himself out of contention to replace injured Robert Kubica in 2011.

The 31-year-old Briton was a well-respected Honda test driver who raced full-time for Super Aguri in 2007 and 2008.

He has recently been working with Mercedes GP in the Brackley based team’s simulator, but his main job is with Peugeot’s Le Mans team, and he has re-committed for this year.

According to Mirror correspondent Byron Young on Twitter, Davidson said Kubica’s replacement this year has “big shoes to fill and must be a title contender”.

Young said Davidson had therefore ruled “himself out of (contention for the) Renault Lotus drive having signed Peugeot Le Mans deal”.

Meanwhile, Observer correspondent and BBC radio commentator Maurice Hamilton revealed on Tuesday that “well-informed rally mates tell me Renault have been talking to Kimi (Raikkonen)’s management team”.

“They ought to talk to Ant Davidson,” he added.

Nick Heidfeld’s manager on Tuesday refused to confirm speculation the German driver is a candidate to replace the injured Robert Kubica in 2011.

Vitaly Petrov, after visiting his regular Polish teammate in hospital, named veteran Heidfeld alongside Bruno Senna and Tonio Liuzzi as the leading contenders to race in Kubica’s place this year.

“With respect for Robert, we believe it is currently not appropriate to speculate,” Heidfeld’s manager Andre Theuerzeit told the German news agency SID.

33-year-old German Heidfeld, with more than 170 grands prix under his belt, was Kubica’s teammate at BMW between 2006 and 2009.

HISPANIA Racing will not take part in the Jerez test-sessions schedule and will participate in a Pirelli filming-session in Monza.

Hispania Racing will be in action in Monza from the 14th to 16th of February, and will travel to Barcelona for the final European testing-session straight after the filming-exercise is completed, in order to be ready for testing in Barcelona on the 18th of February.

Colin Kolles, Hispania Racing Team Principal: “We are happy to support PIRELLI in Monza.”

Vitaly Petrov on Tuesday named three leading contenders to become his new teammate for 2011.

After visiting his injured teammate Robert Kubica in an Italian hospital, the Russian named “(Bruno) Senna, (Tonio) Liuzzi and (Nick) Heidfeld”.

Petrov was speaking at the Santa Corona hospital, quoted by ivg.it.

“We were with him for about a quarter of an hour. We joked and found him very well,” said Petrov, who was with their Renault team boss Eric Boullier.

“Of course he immediately wanted to know the team schedules for the season. Meanwhile we will look for his replacement.

“The team is close to Robert and we are waiting with open arms and hoping he can return by the end of the season,” he added.

Kubica will have surgery on his shoulder and foot this week, to be followed by an elbow operation.

The bulk of the shares for Williams’ stock market floatation have been freed by co-founder Patrick Head, it has emerged.
Reuters reports that while the Grove based team’s long time engineering director holds 27 per cent now, his ownership will dwindle to just 5 per cent after the floatation on the stock market on March 2.

The news agency also said Head, 65, is set to retire “in the near future”.

“That will take me out of a day-to-day role within the team,” said the Briton.

“Even after the listing I will be a significant shareholder, around five per cent, and I plan to retain that until I do retire,” he added.

Williams confirmed last week that it is offering 27 per cent of the team to the public, with Sir Frank Williams remaining the majority shareholder and boss.

Head revealed that he agreed to release most of his shares for the listing “because Frank wishes to remain in control of the team” and the other shareholder Toto Wolff “invested only 15 months ago”.

“But we are not there (retirement) yet and I want to play my part in bringing Williams back to the front of the grid,” he added.

HRT on Tuesday revealed the first computer-generated photos of its new car and livery for the 2011 season.
The F111 looks similar to the Dallara-built chassis of last season, but the Spanish team said it has been designed by Geoff Willis and Paul White.

“We are very pleased to introduce the first spec of the F111,” said team owner Jose Ramon Carabante. “This is only a first step as we are planning several updates during the season.”

Added team boss Colin Kolles: “We have made a big improvement for our second season and what you see confirms our commitment to F1.”

The new Daniel Simon-designed livery is also apparently only a first specification, given that the only on-car sponsor is Tata and several spaces include logos such as ‘This could be you’.

Hispania Racing is shaping up the F111, the new Spanish Team´s car, which will be hitting the tracks of the 2011 F1 season.

Hispania Racing is pleased to show the pictures of the new car developed by its own group of engineers and designers under the technical leadership of Geoff Willis and Chief Designer Paul White.

Jose Ramon Carabante, Hispania Racing President, stated: “We feel really proud of the car our drivers will run this forthcoming season. Despite a challenging first year, we managed to finish on the eleventh position in the World Constructors Championship. Now, we are very pleased to introduce the first spec of the F111, which means a huge design-effort from our side. This is only a first step as we are planning several updates during the season.”

Colin Kolles, Team Principal of Hispania Racing, “The F111 represents a significant step forward for Hispania Racing. We have made a big improvement for starting our second season in Formula 1 and what you see in our new car confirms Hispania Racing´s commitment to F1.” Colin Kolles also reveals that “the F111 will incorporate the adjustable rear wing.”

Daniel Simon who was responsible for the livery of the car, has perfectly expressed the combination of his personal ideas and those of Hispania Racing.

Colin Kolles: “Daniel has created a wonderfully confident look for our new car which really captures the effort the whole team has put into developing the F111. The car design and the graphic design perfectly complement one another and mark the real beginnings of our ambitions.”

Daniel is today one of the most imaginative and adventurous designers in both Hollywood and the motor industry. Although he and his label Cosmic Motor live mostly in the future, he also has a strong passion for motor racings bold iconic liveries from the past, and he has drawn inspiration of them in creating Hispania Racing´s new livery. “I miss fearless visual statements and large beautiful numbers on today´s racing cars.”

That distinct Cosmic Motors look brings together racing spirit and commercial reality, blending the dual requirements in a seamless, but attractive manner, which reflects the motivated vibe of the Hispania Racing team as it enters its second Formula 1 season.

Working within the defined Hispania Racing shape was enjoyable for Daniel, “Playing with the restrictions of what you can do to a complex F1 body is fun. There are many don´ts, but I found a way to lay courageous racing essence on the car.”

Sebastian Vettel did not win the prestigious Laureus prize despite becoming F1′s youngest ever world champion.
The 23-year-old was nominated for the sportsman of the year gong but it was Spanish world number 1 tennis star Rafael Nadal who accepted the trophy on Monday night at the gala in Abu Dhabi.

And the Spanish national football team also beat Vettel’s nominated Red Bull team to the best international team prize.

Representing the world of premier motor racing, however, Valentino Rossi was awarded the world comeback of the year title.

Last year, the Italian took just 41 days to return to the saddle of his MotoGP bike after suffering an exposed leg fracture.

Virgin has confirmed that its newly launched MVR-02 car is not designed to accommodate a KERS system.
Along with Lotus and HRT, the three teams are the only ones in formula one who will not benefit from the energy-recovery technology in 2011.

Car designer Nick Wirth defended the decision on the basis that Virgin has other priorities.

“The fact is it (KERS) is extremely expensive and extremely heavy and it is worth about three tenths of a second — we’re after three seconds,” he said at the car’s launch in London on Monday.

And continuing driver Timo Glock agreed that Virgin is not going to be pushing the frontrunners in 2011.

“Realistically you do not make up three or four seconds over the winter, but hopefully we can be closer to the midfield teams,” said the German.

Wirth said the design team’s biggest focus has been reliability, with hydraulics proving the achilles heel in 2010.

He confirmed that while Virgin tried a radical Renault-like forward-exiting exhaust in its computer simulators, the team ultimately opted for a more conservative solution.

“We understand why they (Renault) are doing it, but you need to be a team like Renault from the financial, human and technical resources standpoint to implement it.

“So we’re happy with our solution,” German reports quote Wirth as saying.

Glock told Auto Motor und Sport: “Compared to our competitors we can’t afford to have such radical solutions.”

And the 28-year-old smiled as he confirmed that the fuel tank will be big enough this season.

“That’s not going to happen to us again,” he said. “This time our tank is too big!”

Shocking new details of Robert Kubica’s rally crash have emerged.

Video footage of the car that was following the Pole’s Skoda Fabia in the minor event in Italy, and newly emerged photographs, show that a length of armco barrier skewered the car from front to rear.

Currently sedated due to the pain, he will stay in intensive care for a few more days, before his other injuries are operated on. Reports have said Kubica lost 5 pints of blood after the crash and was initially in a “critical” condition.

Kubica’s co-driver has criticised the roads and the front-impact safety standards of the car, but others argued that the highly paid 26-year-old should not have been competing at all.

“You’ve got to look after that investment,” triple world champion and former team owner and boss Sir Jackie Stewart told the Telegraph.

“It’s quite a challenge to stop drivers doing the things I believe are unwise leading up to a F1 season,” he added.

Renault chief Eric Boullier, however, said the freedom to rally is so important to Kubica, who for years was not allowed to according to the terms of his BMW contract.

Former BMW-Sauber team boss Mario Theissen told the Associated Press: “What’s the point in pushing hard for the highest safety standards in F1 if a driver is then seriously hurt in other racing activities?”

The German said he always had “sympathy” for Kubica’s passions, but “The driver is key to success in F1.

“Only he can turn the tremendous effort of several hundred equally determined people into results.”

To L’Equipe in France, however, Boullier defended Kubica’s freedom to rally on the basis that “He could also have been run over by a bus going to get his bread”.

But Martin Brundle said it was “crazy” for Kubica to be rallying in between key F1 tests, and Canadian driver Patrick Carpentier agrees.

“If I was to blame someone, it would be his team, who should never have released him (to rally),” he told the French language Rue Frontenac.

“Especially (not) so close to the start of the new season, and between two test sessions. What bad timing,” added Carpentier.

Commented Jacques Laffite, a commentator for French television and ex-F1 winner: “My position has always been that these guys who take risks every Sunday should be free to do what they like.

“Today, we are seeing things differently, obviously,” he told L’Equipe.

“An F1 driver is part of a team of about 700 people, so it is right to have some restrictions,” added Laffite.

Flavio Briatore said after visiting Kubica: “You can’t blame anyone, the accident was just that.”

And it seems that even Ferrari doesn’t stop its drivers from participating in dangerous activities, as when Fernando Alonso heard about Kubica’s crash, he was skiing in Val Gardena.

Virgin boss John Booth said trying to control F1 drivers is futile.

“We took Jerome (d’Ambrosio) and Timo (Glock) skiing a couple of weeks ago,” he said at the launch of the MVR-02.

“We said Ok guys, stick to the piste, blah blah blah, so we got to the top of the lift, the gates opened and they were just flat out. They were everywhere.

“And that’s how they are. That’s what makes them so good. You can’t wrap them in cotton wool,” he added.

The plethora of German drivers is making it harder for Nico Hulkenberg to break through in formula one.

That is the claim of famous driver manager Willi Weber, who after watching his rookie charge Hulkenberg secure pole in Brazil last year was left scrambling to find the 23-year-old a new job.

Struggling Williams replaced Hulkenberg with the well-financed Pastor Maldonado, with Hulkenberg forced to sit out 2011 as Force India’s reserve and Friday driver.

There were seven Germans in F1 last year, but only five for the 2011 season as Hulkenberg and Nick Heidfeld lose their race seats.

“Nico has all the right qualities but he had to share the stage with many other Germans,” Weber told the Swiss publication Motorsport Aktuell.

“It’s like a cake; if you have to share it with seven others, the piece you have is small,” he explained.

Both Hulkenberg and Heidfeld are considered serious contenders to replace the injured Robert Kubica at Renault this year.