On Saturday evening, more than one person was very frightened when they saw the No. 15 BMW M Hybrid V8 being pulverized in the last part of the long Mulsanne straight. Trying not to let himself be taken by former F1 driver Robert Kubica, Dries Vanthoor was sent by the latter against the safety rails. The front of the white BMW was completely destroyed, Laurens’ brother finishing his crazy swerve shortly before the Mulsanne hairpin.
In his cockpit, Dries seemed to swear “But what the hell did he do? !”. In fact, Kubica’s responsibility was very quickly incurred. As the two Hypercars overtook a Porsche 911 together, the winner of the 2008 Canadian GP dropped back and kicked Vanthoor, the rear-right part of the yellow Ferrari touching the front-left side of the unfortunate BMW . Kubica would then be penalized with a 30-second Stop and Go but the damage was done. For the same price, Dries could have hurt himself very badly.
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gullWhen I meet Kubica in the race at Interlagos, I will remember it.
“I’m dealing well with it, Dries tells us. I was a little sore at the time but on Sunday, I was only slightly groggy. During my career, I have experienced some very tough fights but this one is unacceptable. Something must be done for the future of motorsport. We were going over 300km/h and Kubica kicked me. And it only took 30 seconds of stop and go for that? This is a very bad message. I lost all faith in the WEC because of this. But when we see the light penalty they gave the Cadillac after the Spa card, it doesn’t surprise me. It doesn’t matter: when I meet Kubica in the race at Interlagos, I will remember it. And he didn’t even send me a message to apologize.”
Dries’ anger is echoed by WRT who are naturally fuming at having lost a car like this. “What Kubica did is particularly unsporting, Vincent Vosse, the team boss, told us. It’s very surprising and disappointing coming from a champion like him, who is also a former WRT driver. We will talk about it during the week, when things have calmed down a little.”
Certainly, the Kubica affair is likely to be talked about for a long time to come.
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