Injured Race Car Driver To Receive Blood Relic of The Late Pope John Paul II

Kubica gets dead Pope's blood

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.

See also: John Paul II's Miracle Move Toward Sainthood