Autoblog

With both Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa contracted with Ferrari through next year, reports are circulating that the Scuderia may bring on board both Fernando Alonso and Robert Kubica for 2010.

After Kimi and Felipe, and with Lewis Hamilton firmly in place at McLaren, the pairing of Alonso and Kubica in Maranello would provide a formidable team against the rest of the field. Alonso, of course, is a two-time world champion and one of the only drivers to repeatedly beat Schumacher to the title, while Kubica has proven himself a competent driver of the highest degree. Whether the reports are accurate, and whether Ferrari would just dump Kimi and Felipe like that remains to be seen.

[Source: Tuttosport via Axis of Oversteer, Photo by WILLIAM WEST/AFP/Getty]

Go to any restaurant in Los Angeles and you're likely to find a few waiters looking for an opportunity to make it in Hollywood. Head to a major racetrack in Europe - and many other parts of the world - and you'll find dozens of aspiring drivers hoping for a shot at F1. But whereas Formula 3 used to be the one way in, various single-seat racing series have popped up in the last few years, giving more drivers the opportunity to compete, to win, and to ultimately demonstrate their aptitude behind the wheel.

Recent cases like Lewis Hamilton's notwithstanding, most drivers enter the circus with a test seat, maybe for a team further down the field in the hope of moving their way up to a competitive race seat. Since taking over Sauber, BMW's Formula One team has been performing admirably, and though its talented race drivers Robert Kubica and Nick Heidfeld, who both made their way up the ranks themselves, are staying in their seats for next season, BMW's test driver Timo Glock, fresh from his title win on the GP2 circuit, is all but signed to move to a race seat for Toyota (or possibly Williams, which gets its engines from the Japanese giant). So team principal Mario Theisen has drawn up a short list to make the leap up from the bush leagues. While it may not be as exciting as speculating on McLaren's replacement for Alonso or where he'll go next season, these selections tend to be fairly secretive - that's why we speculate - but for this seat we've got a rare glimpse into the process.

Aside from title winner Glock, GP2 gave good exposure to several other competitive drivers this season, and Theisen is considering several, including Adam Carroll, won two GP2 races this season, 2007 British F3 champ Marko Asmer, and 2006 German Formula BMW champion Christian Vietoris. Joining them on the shortlist is Nico Hulkenberg, who is managed by Schumacher's agent Wili Weber - which already tells you he's a hot shoe - and has worked his way up through A1GP where he took the title for Team Germany this year. BMW Sauber is a team known to have an eye for talent, so whoever they pick, pay attention, because you're likely to see him dicing it up for podiums and championship points in a few years from now.

[Source: F1-Live]

Spectators, commentators and fans all feared the worst when BMW Sauber's star driver Robert Kubica hit the wall at the end of the hairpin at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve on St. Helen's Island in Montreal during this year's Canadian Grand Prix. But as we all know, the Polish driver suffered only a concussion and a sprained ankle, despite the high speeds, high G's and hard impact of the crash. Now he's back in the cockpit, sticking it to everyone this side of Ferrari and McLaren, defending champions Renault included. (Thank God for carbon fiber, eh Robbie?)

The techies over at RTL, the German network that broadcasts the Formula One events, put together this three-dimensional re-creation of the crash, complete with some Matrix-style viewing-angle sweeps. The action is slowed down so you can better see what happened, which makes it all too easy to forget the enormous speeds at which the crash occurred.

Unfortunately, whoever posted it up on YouTube decided to mix in a typically poor soundtrack, but since the original was without sound anyway, offended parties can feel free to turn down the volume completely.

• Kubica survives crash at 75 G
• New view of Kubica crash as F1 goes after YouTube clips
• VIDEO: Kubica crashes Canadian GP

Thanks to everyone who wrote in with the info!
Video after the jump.

[Source: RTL via YouTube]

The boffins have broken down the data from BMW Sauber F1 driver Robert Kubica's crash at the Montreal Grand Prix. If the shunt itself wasn't eye-popping enough, it turns out that Kubica hit the wall nearly head on at 142.6 mph and endured a 75 G impact. And he made it out with nothing more than a slight concussion and a sprained ankle. That's what a survival cell, crash box, HANS system, helmet, and 1,000 pieces of carbon fiber, Kevlar, metal, and honeycomb can do for you when they work perfectly. In a burst of German understatement, the BMW Sauber technical director said they were "very content about the behavior of the chassis as survival cell." Throttle-by-wire is great, but we need a whole lot more of that kind of tech to trickle down ASAP.

[Source: Autosport]

New video has emerged of Robert Kubica's shocking crash at Sunday's Montreal GP in which the 22-year-old Pole cheated death after hitting a barrier at 170 mph. This time around the camera is positioned at the opposite end of the hairpin from previous clips, and shows just how fast Toyota's Jarno Trulli and Kubica were going right before the impact.

You'd think after a crash like that Kubica's racing days would be over. Well, we're glad to report that he was released from the hospital the next day with only a slight concussion and a sprained ankle. We're told his first words to the doctor were "Can I race?", and that he even drove himself home after being given the a-OK.

Clips of the crash started showing up on YouTube within minutes and now Formula One management has started forcing YouTube to remove the offending material, which it claims violate copyright agreements. Fortunately, the opposite view of the crash we have after the jump appears to be taken by someone not affiliated with F1, and it remains on the video sharing site for now. Check it out after the jump.

Thanks for the tip, Keith!

[Source: F1Fanatic.co.uk]

Saying "Polish Grand Prix" sounds like the start of a joke, but unlike the halfhearted efforts underway in Bulgaria, the Poles might be serious. F1 fever appears to be sweeping the Eastern European country as their first F1 driver Robert Kubica has been shining as a rising star.

The target location is the Baltic seaside port city of Gdansk, a regional capital with a population of around one million and ever-increasing transcontinental accessibility. The track would be built on a 450-acre site six miles outside the city, formerly known as Danzig. The mayor is proposing a $200 million investment to build the track and its accompanying facilities, which should be more than enough to construct a thoroughly modern and comprehensive potential host site for a grand prix.

The sport's recent shift away from the predominance of European races could hurt Poland's chances, but the prospect of opening up the former Soviet bloc to F1 could be enough to make the Pole position a compelling case.

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• Bulgarian Grand Prix? Not likely
• Good Ol' Boys Grand Prix? Alabama site interested in F1

[Source: GrandPrix.com]