Robert Kubica has made a rare appearance in front of his home crowd in a Formula 1 car.
The Renault driver appeared at Poznan circuit and spent 20 minutes behind the wheel of a 2009-spec R29 in the team’s 2010 colours.
Renault also prepared a party trick for the crowd, performing a rendition of the Polish national anthem using the car’s engine:
Kubica previously appeared in an F1 car in Poland two years ago when he drove a BMW in Warsaw.
Did you see Kubica at Poznan? If so please tell us about it in the comments.
Read more: Time for a Polish Grand Prix?
Images (C) Renault/LAT
Magnificent Geoffrey (@magnificent-geoffrey)
19th July 2010, 23:05
Wow.
You could say that all of those fans were in Pole Position.
Lachie
20th July 2010, 4:14
Oh Geoffrey you missed it!
“You could say all those fans…
(Puts on sunglasses)
were in Pole Position
YYYEEEAAAAHHHH!!!!!!!!”
xtophe (@xtophe)
20th July 2010, 9:50
Why is it so easy to visualize how this would look like? :D
Dan N
19th July 2010, 23:25
Nice to see the 2009 car in (much) better colours. Good for the local fans too as they dont get a race weekend.
Gareth S
19th July 2010, 23:46
Wasn’t it Renault on Top Gear that got the engine to do God Save The Queen? I guess one of the engineers must be a wanna be composer/conductor or something? :)
Fer no.65 (@fer-no65)
20th July 2010, 0:02
they had already done the “We are the champions” bit after the Brazilian GP i think!
GeeMac
20th July 2010, 5:32
I think they do it wherever they go. They came to South Africa a couple of years ago and did the South African National Anthem, its Renault’s party piece.
Bartholomew
20th July 2010, 0:30
Ilove Kubica and I love the Polish people and their country, from where John Paul II came from to change the world.
Our greatest admiration for our Polish brothers !!!
Cheers
The engine should play “Five Variants Of Dives And Lazarus” in the Barry Wordsworth version , in honor of the Holy Father, and to bring luck to our brother Robert in his 2010 campaign !
Nitpicker
20th July 2010, 12:43
John Paul, who did he drive for?
Maciek
20th July 2010, 13:22
I did not know that Brother Robert had taken the vows.
Lobotomy
20th July 2010, 0:59
Absolutely outstanding show for those who haven’t seen F1 car in action before. Robert and Jerome d’Ambrosio, who you haven’t mentioned in article, did really fast laps, looked like they were pushing the limits, really.
Here is one of my hi-res photos, showing Kubica locking his wheels under hard braking. Sorry for such a bad cropping, but there was a lot of people.
http://up.programosy.pl/foto/dsc_7903.jpg
BasCB
20th July 2010, 6:29
Nice picture, it shows they were really pushing the car!
Mike
20th July 2010, 8:06
Nice pic dude, did you take that?
Lobotomy
20th July 2010, 10:28
Correct, I took this photo.
Magnificent Geoffrey (@magnificent-geoffrey)
20th July 2010, 13:07
*right-click* -> “set as desktop background”
ralphjag
20th July 2010, 1:16
The news says 90,000 people showed up on this 35C degree day!
bruce
20th July 2010, 6:42
There was 140,000 people
Harv's
20th July 2010, 2:30
looking at the r29 in 2010 livery, you can really see how terible the corporate influenced 09′ livery was!
wasiF1 (@wasif1)
20th July 2010, 2:48
Renault always put up a good show, I think once in Top Gear they made the engine sing French or British national anthem.
razer1453535
20th July 2010, 4:25
This was very cool that Renault came to Poland w/Kubica as their #1 driver this year. This probably is like the biggest sporting event Poland will have all year and get to see one of your country’s most famous sportspersons who is one of the best especially in a country like Poland (that doesn’t have a jillion athletes like in the US) would be really special.
BasCB
20th July 2010, 6:29
This is exactly what the sport needs. Events for fans to see the drivers doing fast laps, burnouts and tricks like the anthem.
I love these Renault road show events, as well as the Red Bull events and the Bavaria City racing (in Rotterdam, NL and now in Moscow as well).
Have the next ones somewhere close to Austin and throughout the US in the next year or so and it might make the Grandstands burst (only please F1-community, DON’T do a repeat of Indy 2005, not to make it the last Austing GP as well)
Mike
20th July 2010, 7:01
You know, This is exact opposite of Ferrari’s filming days.
This gets the reaction of, oh, how lovely is that? I mean, to go out of their way to meet and greet the fans, and really give something back, so to speak. It is really good.
I used hate Renault, but now that Flavio is gone, and Alonso is at Ferrari, I can be a Renault fan!
stupid Ferrari… *mean face*
bosyber
20th July 2010, 9:24
As others have said: this is good stuff, and we need more of it. I guess this is following the great example of Goodwood, and Red Bull City Races, and ice/beach challenges, and others are now following. A great way to get happy fans.
Bas, you are right, F1 needs to go out during that summer holiday month and get some of this going around the US, maybe South Korea and India too to make people enthusiastic for those new GPs coming up.
Cyclops
20th July 2010, 10:05
Since Poznań is my hometown, I couldn’t miss that event.
The R29 sounded quite nice (only sounded, because a 3 meters thick wall of people prevented me from seeing it). Robert’s drive in Megane Trophy was even better (since this one I could actually see). On the downside – the hosts probably underestimated the crowd (140 thousand people!), there was not enough space for visitors, not mentioning their cars. The main road which leads to the circuit was totally jammed, the jam at one point was for about 13 km (that is from the city center to the track itself). The city transportation company introduced special “F1” bus line from the center to the track, but some people ignored it and preferred cars (bad idea). All in all nice event showing some marketing potential for F1 in Poland. Bernie should take a look at it.
BasCB
20th July 2010, 12:51
No, Please let Bernie not look at it. He would raise the entrance fees, remove the Renault logos and threaten to take it somewhere else where there’s a light rail purpose built to the site!
statix
21st July 2010, 13:18
true… you want do something good, keep old bernie away :)
Lukasz
20th July 2010, 16:15
Blue MEgane is a gift from Renault for Robert.
pawelf1
20th July 2010, 16:20
21.08 there will be McLaren in Poland on Verva Street Racing event. They will build a street track in Warsaw.
I werent in Poznań because i had my weeding on that day
zplol
20th July 2010, 21:13
Well thats one good “excuse” haha
Congrats!
statix
21st July 2010, 13:16
so, twice unlucky that day? :P
F1silverarrows
21st July 2010, 23:06
I still find the Renault is the best looking car on the grid.
daykind
19th August 2010, 11:59
Is this just another large sign that F1 will have a race in Poland?
Sutil.M
16th September 2010, 20:20
The renault car looks so good i have to say even tho i do not support renault