The Kubica question - should professional drivers be allowed to compete in the off season?
In the wake of Robert Kubica’s horrifying accident last Sunday there has been a lot of comment about why he was rallying so near to the start of the season, and why Renault let him compete?
In the modern age of motorsport it is unusual to see drivers competing outside Formula 1, but this is a relatively recent trend. Partly this is because the way that drivers are contracted and paid has changed. For the top drivers their F1 salary means that they don’t need to race elsewhere to make ends meet (in the late 1960’s/early 1970’s Can Am prize money heavily outweighed the rewards available to drivers in F1), whilst for up and coming drivers the terms of their driver development contracts means that they usually have to ask for permission to breathe, let alone race elsewhere.
However, that cannot mitigate the fact that most racing drivers love competing and driving quickly, and that if they have a window where they can race and rally they usually will. It was good to see that Renault have been supportive of Kubica’s decision to go rallying, as despite the risks a happy driver who is risking injury through competing in rallies, is far better than a miserable driver who is going stir crazy. It is certainly worth considering if Ferrari would have got more out of Kimi Raikkonen if they had allowed him to go rallying on his weekends off.
To continue the Raikkonen parallel, throughout 2010 Kimi did his upmost to keep the Citroen spare parts team in business with a series of massive accidents, all of which he more or less walked away from. In contract Kubica who very rarely has incidents was catastrophically unlucky with angle that his car went into the barrier. Fortunately serious injuries in all forms of motorsport are rare and an accident such as Kubica’s is the exception rather than the rule. Gone are the days where F1 drivers regularly competed in the spectacular, but potentially lethal, Group C sportscars, where there was a real risk of serious injury or worse – in 1985 current F1 drivers Stefan Bellof and Manfred Winkelhock were both killed in Group C races.
Yes motorsport is dangerous, but he could have as easily picked up a similar injury in a road accident, or in a mountain biking incident. For example Jason Watt’s single seater career came to an end following a motorbike incident at the end of the 1999 season that left him paralysed from the waist down, or Alessandro Nannini’s 1990 helicopter crash that ended his F1 career after his arm was severed. Short of wrapping your driver in cotton wool at the end of the season there is nothing that the teams can do to ensure that their charges arrive at pre-season testing in full health (although off season cryogenic freezing is surely something to investigate).
Along with everyone else in the motorsports community I hope that Robert Kubica makes a full and speedy recovery, but I also hope that when he’s back in the cockpit that Renault will allow him to go back to rallying.
