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Warsaw - Polish church leaders are hoping that a drop of blood belonging to the late Pope John Paul II will put fellow-Pole, Formula One star Robert Kubica, on the road to recovery, a senior clergyman said on Friday.
In serious condition after a Sunday horror crash in Italy, Kubica is to receive a reliquary containing a drop of the late pontiff's blood and a strip of fabric from one of his liturgical robes, Poland's Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz told the commercial TVN24 news channel.
"John Paul II was a sportsman himself, he loved sport as a young man," Dziwisz said of the late pontiff, whom the Vatican has put on the fast track to sainthood.
Recovering at the Santa Corona de Pietra hospital near the north-west Italian coastal town of Genoa, Kubica, 26, suffered multiple serious injuries in a crash in a rally in Liguria on Sunday that has put his racing career at risk.
Surgeons battled for seven hours to save the functionality of his right hand and he is due to go under the knife again before also facing surgery on his arm and foot.
Lotus Renault GP driver Kubica was racing a Skoda Fabia in the Ronde di Andora rally in Italy when he lost control at high speed on a bend, crashing into a guard rail and ending up in a church wall.
