Who Will Replace Robert Kubica At Lotus Renault GP?

F1 Update from the iSport F1 Pitstop: iSporter Gunjan Shah tries to choose Lotus Renault GP's replacement for an injured Robert Kubica.

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Last weekend, Renault star Robert Kubica was involved in a horrible crash just about 5 km into his Italian Rally endeavor. It took the firefighters over an hour to cut him out of the badly damaged Skoda Fabia RS rally car, while the co-driver amazingly escaped unscathed.

Robert's surgery has been successfully performed and he is thankfully reported to be on the path to recovery. The period of his recovery, seem to be unclear though, with a senior doctor at the Italian hospital saying that it could well take Robert a year to recover enough to resume his racing duties. The important question that the Lotus Renault GP team now faces is who will partner Vitaly Petrov in the sister R31 for the remainder of the three tests and for what could well be the whole 2011 season. While Eric Boullier remains optimistic to have his star driver back by as early as June, he no doubt will be evaluating his options as to who will replace the big void that will be left by Kubica's absence.

While he has two options in the form of reserve drivers Bruno Senna and Romain Grosjean, I think it is unlikely that he will choose either of the two should Robert be unable to race for the majority of this year. Having Petrov, a rookie in F1 terms in the sister car already, Boullier will be looking at having an experienced hand steady the ship to exploit the radical R31, which is being already tipped to be capable of winning races after the first Jerez test last week. So who then does he look to?

Luckily, for him, there are already some veteran drivers out of a job this season. Amongst the forerunners on his list would be Nick Heidfeld and Vitantonio Luizzi, both having raced in the 2010 season with BMW Sauber and Force India respectively. It could turn out to be a tough choice between the two as both of them have their respective advantages.

Nick Heidfeld partnered Kubica for three seasons at BMW Sauber before the German automaker decided to part the fray at the end of the 2009 season and thus would help Renault in developing the R31 effectively further along the season. Furthermore, he could bring with him valuable experience and knowledge of the Pirelli compounds, having extensively tested with them in 2010. As for Vitantonio Luizzi, I consider him unlucky to have missed out on a race seat this season, with Force India opting for Paul Di Resta instead at the last minute.

I think Luizzi had some brilliant races last season, but luck and mechanical gremlins made his overall performance rather inconsistent. Nonetheless, he remains a talent that has so far not shown its true potential. This might just be the break he requires. As for the reserve drivers Senna and Grosjean, I doubt Renault would choose either of them to fill in Kubica's shoes for more than a couple of races; I think they simply would not risk the inconsistencies of having two rookies in a car.

A third distant possibility that was doing the rounds was that Kimi Raikonnen could be called out of his F1 "break" to fill in for Kubica. Although that seems impossible, given the heated exchanges that took place between the team and Kimi last year, it would be rather ironic if that were to happen. While I am sure that whoever fills in Kubica will no doubt have to make way for the Pole when he returns, it could well prove to be pivotal for their careers; especially if Petrov doesn't show more consistent results this season. You know what they say, "One man's loss is another man's gain."