From the Pulpit

Flashback to Sunday, August 10th 1997. Twelve-year-old Robert Kubica is at the Hungaroring, watching his first Grand Prix, having been driven to Budapest from his native Krakow by his father, Artur. On the long drive home he will talk only of how thrilling it has been to watch Jacques Villeneuve pass Damon Hill on the race's final lap to take a dramatic victory.

On Sunday, August 6th 2006, just nine short years after that fateful trip, Robert will make his Grand Prix debut at that same Hungaroring, replacing that same Jacques Villeneuve, who, for reasons as yet unclear, has been declared hors de combat.

You couldn't make it up, could you? But, after pausing for a moment to remark upon the dramatic ironies of such a turn of events, we should bend our minds instead to trying to fathom what it all means - for Kubica, for Villeneuve and, lest we forget, for Nick Heidfeld, too.

Everyone (bar Kubica, who was quickest of all on the Friday, as he often is) at BMW had a torrid 2006 German Grand Prix. Villeneuve and Heidfeld qualified 14th and 16th (respectively) for BMW's first ever home Grand Prix as a fully fledged constructor, but worse was to come.

The following day, while the cream of the company's top brass looked on, the two BMWs collided on the race's very first lap. Both drivers pitted for repairs, but Heidfeld gave up the not-so-good fight just eight laps later. Villeneuve soldiered on for 30 more laps, before making an unforced error while under no discernible pressure and crashing out of the race.

To add insult to injury, as far as BMW's big cheeses were concerned, a Mercedes-powered car had qualified in pole position, had led from the start, and had finished third - by some margin the cream of the Michelin crop on a day when Bridgestone were untouchable.

Thankfully, Jacques wasn't hurt. It was significant, then, that BMW's press release announcing Kubica's promotion included the following statement attributed to their team's motorsport director, Mario Theissen: "Jacques has informed us that he isn't ready to race after his Hockenheim accident."

Robert Kubica © LAT

Not "injured", or "recuperating from" his shunt, or anything like that, you notice; no, simply "not ready to race".

What the hell does that mean?

Well, what it probably doesn't mean, although that's how it has been interpreted by many, is that Jacques's F1 career is necessarily done and dusted.

Let me explain. Undoubtedly, in the immediate aftermath of BMW's disastrous 2006 German Grand Prix, Theissen was under enormous pressure. Both BMW's CEO, Helmut Panke, and the company's director of R&D, Burkhard Goeschel, were at Hockenheim last Sunday - and their dissatisfaction was clear to see.

Ultimately, they're the two BMW VVIPs to whom Theissen must answer. Neither is prepared to allow BMW to fail - or even to flounder. In the very disagreeable circumstances in which Theissen therefore found himself in the early part of this week, doing nothing probably wasn't an option.

"Robert has made an outstanding impression with the team so far," Theissen is quoted as saying in the aforementioned BMW press release, "both in testing and on the Fridays of race weekends. Now we'll see how he performs in an F1 race. However, we haven't yet made a decision as to who'll drive either in the remaining races of the season or next year."

Again, we should pay close attention to Theissen's exact phraseology - and especially to the sentences "Now we'll see how he performs in an F1 race" and "However, we haven't yet made a decision as to who'll drive either in the remaining races of the season or next year".

On what basis, pray, will that decision be made? In Hungary this weekend, Heidfeld, a veteran of 109 Grands Prix, should by rights destroy Kubica, a rookie who has raced at the Hungaroring but once (in 2002, in a Formula Renault 2000 Euro Cup event).

But so what if he does? Will BMW's decision-makers then conclude that, despite all those golden Fridays (when, as we all know, low fuel loads and extra tyres flattered Robert's performances, as they do those of every F1 'Man Friday'), the lad isn't all he's been cracked up to be?

And if the boot should end up on the other foot, and Kubica should beat Heidfeld fair and square, will Nick be ousted instead and Jacques reinstated? Who knows?

Who knows how the exigencies of race driving will affect Kubica? Who knows, for instance, whether the fact that he's generally pretty hard on his tyres, which disadvantages him not one jot when he's on 'Man Friday' duty, will prove his undoing this coming Sunday?

Who knows whether, should it prove that it does, the fact that Villeneuve is by contrast pretty gentle on his tyres will cause BMW's race engineers to urge Theissen to reinstate the 35-year-old Canadian sooner rather than later?

Robert Kubica was fastest on Friday at Hockenheim for BMW-Sauber © LAT

A few weeks ago I wrote in defence of the theory that BMW really ought to re-hire Villeneuve for 2007 - on the basis that, if nothing else, Jacques, unlike either Nick or Robert, possesses at least a modicum of the star quality surely demanded of its F1 drivers by a company as jealous of its brand's undeniable sexiness as BMW.

And what I concluded was that, in order to avoid the inconvenience and embarrassment of having to sack Heidfeld (contracted until the end of 2008, remember), who has neither pace nor grace in abundant supply, Theissen would probably shy away from the obvious course of action - which was and remains to run Villeneuve and Kubica next year.

But perhaps I was wrong. Because the one thing we now know is that, possibly influenced by a board of directors who are perhaps more impatient for immediate success than had hitherto been appreciated by many (and certainly by me), Theissen is prepared to make waves, and court controversy, wherever he deems it necessary.

Personally, I wouldn't therefore be too surprised to see Kubica being trialled in the last six Grands Prix of the year, or at least four of the last six. And I fully expect Heidfeld to be required to step down for at least half of those, with Villeneuve back in harness in his place.

And then, when Kubica's performances relative to each of his enormously experienced but (recently) none-too-successful teammates have been thoroughly appraised, I expect Theissen to select his 2007 driver line-up bearing those appraisals in mind.

You don't agree? Well, perhaps you're right not to. As I say, who knows? But, if you don't agree, then answer me this: why is Villeneuve, who is by an order of magnitude the most outspoken F1 driver of his generation, sitting in silence and allowing his F1 career to be apparently extinguished without a murmur of protest? Why is he being such a patsy?

Because he's waiting and watching, that's why. And he knows that, whatever happens at Budapest and/or Istanbul and/or Monza, the reputation of either Heidfeld or Kubica will inevitably take a knock.

It's like this: they can't both shine, since each can do so only by making his teammate look mediocre. And that incontrovertible racing truism won't do Jacques any harm at all, as well he knows.

Mark my words: we haven't seen the last of Jacques Villeneuve yet.