V8 Supercar: Courtney in doubt for enduro events

Holden Racing Team driver James Courtney is in serious doubt for V8 Supercars' endurance races, following his freak off-track accident at Sydney Motorsport Park last week.

The 2010 champion was hospitalized on Friday when he was struck by pit equipment that fell during a helicopter demonstration. Courtney suffered two broken ribs and a collapsed lung in the incident, and was replaced in the weekend's three races by endurance co-driver Jack Perkins.

He was discharged from hospital on Tuesday, albeit unable to fly from Sydney to his home on Queensland's Gold Coast, instead doing the journey by car.

With the Sandown 500 less than three weeks away and Bathurst 1000 a month later, Walkinshaw Racing boss Adrian Burgess said the team was in the dark about Courtney's return.

"People are saying numbers; three weeks, six weeks, eight weeks," he told the series' website of possible recovery time. But we are not subscribing to any of that. We are not discounting that James will be in the car [for Sandown].

"We will give it our best shot to give him the ability and spare no expense, people and technology in order to speed up his recovery and get him back in the car as soon as we can. But when I say that, it has to be in the right way. There's no point sticking him in the car at 80 percent and he does some more damage – not only does he have a bad Sandown but he has a bad Bathurst, too."

The team is due to complete its major pre-Sandown test next week, and is evaluating options should Courtney be ruled out. IndyCar driver Ryan Briscoe is the leading contender, having contested V8 Supercars endurance races with the squad regularly since 2006.

Porsche GT driver Patrick Long – who raced in the series' international co-driver races on the Gold Coast in 2010 and '11 – has also been linked to the possible vacancy. However Long's World Endurance Championship program would rule him out of Bathurst, owing to a clash with the Fuji WEC race.

Originally on Autosport.com