Burti Could Miss Rest of Season, Says Doctor

Brazilian Luciano Burti could miss the rest of the season following his horrific crash in Sunday's Belgian Grand Prix, a Formula One doctor said on Thursday.

Gary Hartstein, a member of the International Automobile Federation (FIA) medical team, told BBC radio that the Prost driver was making good progress but could need up to two months to recover fully. He said the 26-year-old, currently recovering in a Liege hospital, was feeling very tired.

"We like people who have had severe concussion to be totally asymptomatic for a significant amount of time before any chance of a second concussion," Hartstein said. "So I don't know where that puts Luciano.

"We would want him to go a certain period of time, longer than the next race (the Italian Grand Prix) at any event, before he even thinks about getting back in the car. If my son - with what I know about head injury - were to have an impact like Luciano had I would probably want to see him asymptomatic (showing no symptoms) for at least four to eight weeks before getting back in the car.

"I would advise that he not get back in the car," he added. "I don't think Luciano will be showing up at Monza physically, I think he's probably going to still be resting. I don't think he'll feel like showing up.

"Although I haven't asked him, significantly enough he hasn't asked me either."

After Monza next week there are two races remaining this season, with the final Grand Prix in Japan in October. Prost have yet to name a replacement to partner Germany's Heinz-Harald Frentzen. Hartstein, who attended Burti at the site of the crash, said Burti now showed few visible signs of his 240 km/h ordeal.

"If you were to look at him today and not know what he had been through you'd just think he was a fairly tired looking young man," he said. "He's totally oriented, conversant, capable of smiling and a joke here and there. What really strikes the observer is just how tired he is."

But the doctor admitted he had been "quite scared that things were not going in the sense we would want them to" when he first tended to the Brazilian.