Doctors treating Robert Kubica are hoping to carry out all remaining surgeries on the Polish driver on Friday.
The 26-year-old has been moved out of intensive care at the Santa Corona hospital to their trauma ward as he continues to recover from the horrific injuries he suffered in a crash on the Ronde di Andora rally on Sunday.
The Lotus Renault driver, who is set to miss the entire 2011 Formula One season, underwent an operation to re-attach his partially severed hand on Sunday evening but still requires operations on his foot, shoulder and elbow.
The original plan had been for procedures to be split between Friday and Monday, but Dr Francesco Lanza, head of traumatology and orthopaedics at Santa Corono has revealed that they may all be carried out in one go.
"Yes, we were thinking of doing surgery in a single session," he told the Italian media.
"We are inclined towards that. But obviously it depends on the patient's general state, because Friday's session is long: there is the astragalus, the humerus, the neck of the humerus, perhaps we'll need to insert some bone material, so that's already a complex operation.
"On top of that there is the elbow, but if possible we would like to do everything in a single session. No question that surgery time would be long, we'd need six or seven hours."
With Kubica absent from Thursday's opening running of the pre-season test at Jerez, all the teams present ran with the message 'Szybkiego powrotu do zdrowia Robert' on their cars. The message translates from Polish as 'Get well soon Robert'.
Kubica's Lotus Renault team-mate Vitaly Petrov was in the new R31 today as the team got back on track for the first time since the accident, which saw the Pole's Skoda Fabia penetrated by a guard-rail that slammed into the right-hand side of his body, trapping him in the car.
Lotus Renault are to evaluate test driver Bruno Senna and German veteran Nick Heidfeld, a team-mate of Kubica's for four years at BMW Sauber, on Saturday and Sunday at Jerez, with Heidfeld viewed as the favourite to land the drive.
Team principal Eric Boullier said: "After a difficult few days, it's good for the team to be back at the track and to have our minds focused on developing the car.
"Things went pretty well, but it's early days and there is still so much for us to learn about the new car."
Credit: PlanetF1.com (www.planetf1.com)
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