Robert kubica seriously injured

[heebeegeetee]

interloper said:

Honestly what would you rather tell your grand kids a " I used to drive in F1 went rallying, had an amazing time and a huge crash or two but survived" or "I just stuck to F1 spent the rest of my spare time being a boring c@@t but eventually won the WDC" I know which gets my vote!

That doesn't make sense. Firstly, i'd rather tell my grandkids "thanks to the support i had some great opportunities came my way and i made the most of them and did well, and that's what you should do" and then i'd want to say "I had 10 great years at the pinnacle of the sport and now i've enjoyed rallying for some 40 years".

A chap called Willy Cave who was a former works navigator is still finishing in the top ten on international road rallies and he's about 85*. Honestly, there is plenty of time for rallying but you shouldn't be doing it in the month of F1 testing when an entire project and the fortunes and prospects of hundreds of workers is centered smack-bang on you.

• 84 in a couple of weeks. http://self-preservationsociety.blogspot.com/2009_... Scroll down.

Edited by heebeegeetee on Sunday 13th February 15:23

[Munter]

heebeegeetee said:

Honestly, there is plenty of time for rallying but you shouldn't be doing it in the month of F1 testing

So what should he be doing to give himself the equivalent training?

[interloper]

heebeegeetee said:

"thanks to the support i had some great opportunities came my way and i made the most of them and did well".

That sounds very corporate? I'm surprised you didn't mention and thank your sponsors whilst regaling the grand kiddy winks with your tales too?

Maybe Robert takes the view that life is short, better pack in as much as possible now before you're hit by a freak lightning bolt or piece of Armco! I suspect the real issue here is that HBGT, you look down your nose at rallying and somehow see it as a lesser sport to your beloved F1?

Personally I wish more F1 drivers would get involved in other motorsport like they used to, it would raise the profile of different forms of motorsport, which would be a good thing and in reality the risks are small.

[skinny]

maybe someone should start a pistonheads poll - do you support kubica in his decision to go rallying?

personally, regardless of the fact that he's now ruined at least this year of his F1 career, i'm in total 100% support of this guy who has dedicated his entire life to racing, does what he loves and just so happens to be good enough that he's made it right to the top - very few other recent drivers have come up to F1 without massive backing through their careers or vast amounts of cash - it's kubica's desire and talent that got him where he is. he doesn't owe us anything, he's a natural born racer, and i wouldn't want him to be any other way.

[Cleaning Van Man]

skinny said:

maybe someone should start a pistonheads poll - do you support kubica in his decision to go rallying?

personally, regardless of the fact that he's now ruined at least this year of his F1 career, i'm in total 100% support of this guy who has dedicated his entire life to racing, does what he loves and just so happens to be good enough that he's made it right to the top - very few other recent drivers have come up to F1 without massive backing through their careers or vast amounts of cash - it's kubica's desire and talent that got him where he is. he doesn't owe us anything, he's a natural born racer, and i wouldn't want him to be any other way.

agree with what you've said.

I cant see the point in being wrapped up in cotton wool.

[donna180]

heebeegeetee said:

100% wrong. I was the one who said Kimi should have managed his damaged tyre and got a result. (IIRC another driver did precisely that didn't he - or did he go off at the same place as Kimi without flat spotting, can't quite recall now).

Kimi was the driver who could tell the fans to fk off on live TV and the fans would fall over themselves and think he's so cool 'cos they don't realise that Kimi has just told them to fk off, but aside from that i wasn't a great fan of his 'cos of his inability to manage his equipment - he was a car breaker. Quick though - till it broke.

I guess i just don't share the whimsical view of F1 that many do, and that's despite years of reading Nigel Roebuck, who incidentally, i've no doubt in his next column in MotorSport the name of Stirling Moss will be mentioned.

Edited by heebeegeetee on Sunday 13th February 09:17

Actually the stats don't bear out your suggestion on Raikkonen at all.

Take the 2005 season as an example:

Raikkonen suffered a drive shaft issue early in the San Marino race after no obvious car maltreatment as he was pulling out an easy lead.
A rear tyre valve issue in Malaysia.
Practise issues (engine failure at Magny Cours, oil pump issues at Silverstone, a piston at Monza and a connecting rod at Suzuka) all costing 4 10 place grid drops although he still won in Suzuka.
And a hydralic leak during the race at Hockenheim.

Maybe Raikkonen did make one mistake in flatspotting his tyre but maybe he had a harder job racing Montoya than Alonso did Fisichella in a Flavio dominiated Renault team.

Anyway, Robert, get well soon and look forward to seeing you in F1 and rallying again soon.

[rottie102]

Top Gear team just wished RK all the best and quick recovery. Nice touch.

[DiscoColin]

Munter said:

heebeegeetee said:

Honestly, there is plenty of time for rallying but you shouldn't be doing it in the month of F1 testing

So what should he be doing to give himself the equivalent training?

Doing the Daytona 24hr race would have been better race conditioning for a circuit driver than pedaling a rally car...

For me it is one of those odd situations where I understand why he was doing it and would support him doing what he wants to do, yet in stark contradiction I think that he was at least a bit of a pillock for doing it. He has potentially ruined the whole year for a lot of people who put their trust, faith and support to a large degree in his charge. Was it living life for today or reckless self-indulgence that risks other people's livelihoods? There are very compelling arguments from both sides, though from his own perspective I suspect whether his career returns to F1 or ends up in touring cars will determine whether hindsight paints it as an acceptable risk 10 years from now...

I really hope that he fully recovers and retains his drive though, as this still could end up being a big loss to the sport.

[DJC]

GravelBen said:

You spelt most of them wrong and forgot Kankkunen, but thats a matter for another thread. General point agreed with.

Knackers, knew I left someone out.
And you can sod off with the spelling, it was a top of head, Sat morning on the sofa rant :P

[Streps]

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/motor/2011-02-14-37...
"Kubica's girlfriend, Edyta Witas, is quoted on the TVN24's website as saying that "Robert's physical and psychological condition has gotten worse" and that he would probably remain in intensive care at a hospital in Italy until Wednesday."

Does not sound good.
lets hope he improves,a young guy with huge talent.

[HBLC]

Streps said:

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/motor/2011-02-14-37...
"Kubica's girlfriend, Edyta Witas, is quoted on the TVN24's website as saying that "Robert's physical and psychological condition has gotten worse" and that he would probably remain in intensive care at a hospital in Italy until Wednesday."

Does not sound good.
lets hope he improves,a young guy with huge talent.

According the the BBC, those reports are ''wrong''.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/formula...

He's doing well.

[skinny]

yeah i would be inclined to take them with a large pinch of salt too, a lot of people are regurgitating the same story that one polish(?) website ran.

obviously the news that all is fine and he's on the slow road to recovery isn't exciting enough...

[skwdenyer]

dr_gn said:

That concept didn't work too well on the recent A380 accident did it?

Sorry for late reply, but that wasn't a fan blade "blade off" event. AFAIK, the A380 incident involved a turbine failure. There was a small amount of damage to the engine's bypass duct and cowling, but no penetration of the fuselage.

The big risk with turbofan aircraft engines is a loss of one or more of the large fan blades at the front of the engine - these are metres long. The usual mode of failure is in response to foreign object damage - bird strike, rabbits sucked off the sides of the runway on takeoff, stones similarly, and so on. One or more fan blades may fail, and must be contained by the containment system. One such system was designed by my lab many years ago, featuring a mixture of profiled titanium alloy and a secondary Kevlar containment layer. It works very well - here's one of many videos available to demonstrate that: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnnxqQj_dDs

Worse than that would be a "disc failure" - that is when the hub of the fan fails (perhaps due to fatigue cracking), and lets all of the fan blades fly off. That can be very hard to contain, and very nasty. Thankfully, that is very rare, but it does happen - see this picture of an MD-88 which suffered a disc failure of a similar kind:



If you're interested, more information here

At that point, all bets are off, but the technology used to contain fan blades would be directly applicable to the problem of penetrating objects on a rally car.

dr_gn said:

Could you also make it transparent please (just in case anything might get directed through the windscreen) ?

If you want glass to prevent that sort of intrusion, it is available. It is very expensive, very thick and very heavy. If it is deemed necessary then it will have to be mandated.

[thatone1967]

apparently Heidfield has been confirmed as his replacement.

[ridds]

I shall no longer be sitting next to Fan blades.....

[Shaw Tarse]

thatone1967 said:

apparently Heidfield has been confirmed as his replacement.

From twitter http://bit.ly/enSwsU

[The Hypno-Toad]

heebeegeetee said:

I guess i just don't share the whimsical view of F1 that many do, and that's despite years of reading Nigel Roebuck, who incidentally, i've no doubt in his next column in MotorSport the name of Stirling Moss will be mentioned.

Edited by heebeegeetee on Sunday 13th February 09:17

And that Senna & Prost really didn't get on.

And that Gilles didn't like Pironi much after Imola.

And that Gilles once lapped Watkins Glen 13 seconds quicker than anyone else (on a Saturday morning, when it didn't count, when any sensible person was hiding from the rain.)

And that Depailler liked a cigarette

And that Beha was his childhood idol and was vastly underated.

And that Tyrrell was a bossy boots.

Sometimes I think that Roebuck, good though he is, just has an insert button for putting whole old paragraphs into his current stories. When you've been reading his columns since 1983 the Imola story is now getting a little old.

[Shaw Tarse]

Again twittered http://bit.ly/hvMLud

[dr_gn]

skwdenyer said:

dr_gn said:

That concept didn't work too well on the recent A380 accident did it?

Sorry for late reply, but that wasn't a fan blade "blade off" event. AFAIK, the A380 incident involved a turbine failure. There was a small amount of damage to the engine's bypass duct and cowling, but no penetration of the fuselage.

The big risk with turbofan aircraft engines is a loss of one or more of the large fan blades at the front of the engine - these are metres long. The usual mode of failure is in response to foreign object damage - bird strike, rabbits sucked off the sides of the runway on takeoff, stones similarly, and so on. One or more fan blades may fail, and must be contained by the containment system. One such system was designed by my lab many years ago, featuring a mixture of profiled titanium alloy and a secondary Kevlar containment layer. It works very well - here's one of many videos available to demonstrate that: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnnxqQj_dDs

Worse than that would be a "disc failure" - that is when the hub of the fan fails (perhaps due to fatigue cracking), and lets all of the fan blades fly off. That can be very hard to contain, and very nasty. Thankfully, that is very rare, but it does happen - see this picture of an MD-88 which suffered a disc failure of a similar kind:



If you're interested, more information here

At that point, all bets are off, but the technology used to contain fan blades would be directly applicable to the problem of penetrating objects on a rally car.

dr_gn said:

Could you also make it transparent please (just in case anything might get directed through the windscreen) ?

If you want glass to prevent that sort of intrusion, it is available. It is very expensive, very thick and very heavy. If it is deemed necessary then it will have to be mandated.

It was actually a turbine disc failure. The reason that there is no containment system for this part of the engine is becasue the discs are are so heavy and are spinning so fast that there is no reasonable way to design a system that would contain that much energy. Much like you couldn't design a workable containment system to prevent the edge of an armco barrier from penetrating a car travelling at 60mph or so: it would be so heavy that it would be unworkable. The design of a containment system for a blade-off event is nothing compared with what would be required for a disc failure.

Just like the jet engine turbine disc, it's far better to design things such that the chances of failure are so small as to be acceptable, just like the chances of an armco barrier failing in such a way as to skewer a rally car. Jet engines won't be required to contain disc failures after the A380 incident, nor will rally cars have to be redesigned to prevent penetration by safety barriers after Kubica's accident.

[heebeegeetee]

The Hypno-Toad said:

heebeegeetee said:

I guess i just don't share the whimsical view of F1 that many do, and that's despite years of reading Nigel Roebuck, who incidentally, i've no doubt in his next column in MotorSport the name of Stirling Moss will be mentioned.

Edited by heebeegeetee on Sunday 13th February 09:17

And that Senna & Prost really didn't get on.

And that Gilles didn't like Pironi much after Imola.

And that Gilles once lapped Watkins Glen 13 seconds quicker than anyone else (on a Saturday morning, when it didn't count, when any sensible person was hiding from the rain.)

And that Depailler liked a cigarette

And that Beha was his childhood idol and was vastly underated.

And that Tyrrell was a bossy boots.

Sometimes I think that Roebuck, good though he is, just has an insert button for putting whole old paragraphs into his current stories. When you've been reading his columns since 1983 the Imola story is now getting a little old.

I still think he writes the best commentary on the F1 scene, or certainly the best I see by far....

But i still bet he mentions Stirling Moss in his next report.