I used to watch Formula One all the time. Made a point of getting up early on Sunday to watch the races. Over the years I have lost touch with the sport, but still keep my eye on it. Especially now that a Polish driver was slowly making waves. (My heritage is Polish so I am always rootin’ for ‘em.) That being Robert Kubica (pronounced koo-bit-zah) who drives for Sauber-BMW. Well this past Sunday, after two of the big name drivers were knocked out in a pit lane accident, Kubica pounced on the opportunity and WON the race.
Kubica gets the checkered flag.
He now is in first place in the points standings, though he might not be there for long. Lewis Hamilton of McLaren and Kimi Raikkonen of Ferrari (last year’s champ), the two taken out by that accident, will probably regain their spots atop the standings. But Kubica has been showing signs of breaking into the elite group, having finished on the podium (a top three finish) already two times this season prior to Sunday.
First Polish F1 driver, and now first to win.
All in all it was great just to see him driving again. Last year at the Canadian Grand Prix, Kubica was involved in one of the most spectacular looking crashes on the F1 circuit in years. Credit the safety measures that have been instilled into racing these days for helping him not only survive, but only sustain minor injuries (a light concussion and sprained ankle).
Safety in F1 has been paramount over the last 14 years after a horrible weekend in 1994 in San Marino claimed the lives of Ayrton Senna and Roland Ratzenberger, and saw Rubens Barrichello survive a very serious accident. It had been 12 years since F1 had seen a death on it’s tracks up to that point, and hasn’t seen any since San Marino.
June 11th, 2008 at 6:54 am
This was a better race to watch then the NASCAR race from Pocono. It’s hard to beleive, but there was more passing going on during an F1 race then the “stock car” race later that afternoon. The two forms of racing are going in opposite directions. It was also cool to see the first win by a Polish born driver in F1.
June 11th, 2008 at 7:20 am
So Uncle Steve, did you replace the Red Wings’ flag with the Polish flag?
Now that Michael Schumacher has retired, it seems that F1 has become very competitive again. I need to start watching it again.
June 12th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
First of all, thanks for the comment on my blog. Secondly, I always much preferred F1 over NASCAR, despite the fact that my dad, brother, and two step brothers loved the latter and went to races all the time. I didn’t realize that Ayrton Senna was killed during a race. Anyway, my wife is Polish, maybe she’ll become a Kubica fan!
June 13th, 2008 at 5:48 am
Senna’s death was quite strange. He was leading the race (of course). No one knows why his car left the track. It was never determined what went wrong. What was even more eerie was that he was devestated by Ratzenberger’s death during qualifying the day before. He spoke up about the fact that safety issues needed to be talked about and changed and even said he would head up a group of drivers to discuss it.
After he was taken out of the car and airlifted to the hospital, workers found an Austrian flag (Ratzenberger’s home country) in the cockpit. It seemed that if Senna had won the race, he planned on honoring and dedicating it to Ratzenberger.