Alan Permane: Vitaly Petrov closer to Robert Kubica’s race pace at Renault – Formula 1 news
Chief engineer of Lotus Renault GP Alan Permane has said Vitaly Petrov is quite close to the race pace of Robert Kubica who was unable to compete in Formula 1 this year since he went through a ‘near-fatal’ accident during a weekend rally event before the
beginning of the 2011 Formula 1 season.
“(In 2010) Robert was ahead most of the time, but he (Petrov) did a good race in Abu Dhabi at the end of the year,” he said.
Kubica drove amazingly in the 2010 Formula 1 season and even during the pre-season test sessions of the 2011 Formula 1 season, he was looking extremely competitive and it seemed that he would be one of the top running drivers of the sport this year.
Petrov on the other hand is looking quite competitive as well this year and as Permane said the young Russian driver has improved a lot and at the first race of the 2011 Formula 1 season in Australia, he scored the first podium position of his Formula 1
career.
“But we found a new Vitaly when we arrived in Melbourne. He was really focused and didn't make a single mistake throughout the weekend. Last year Robert was much faster than him and Vitaly could do nothing about it. He (Kubica) would have been the faster
of the two this season but with not such a difference,” said Permane.
Nick Heidfeld replaced Robert Kubica for this year and he has definitely not performed up to the team’s expectations as he secured just a single podium and with his experience and driving skills, the team was hoping of scoring some pretty amazing results
which is not the case.
Petrov and Heidfeld have been pretty much on equal terms in terms of performance and it is quite clear that the team did not achieve what it was aiming for this year.
Renault are currently in 5th place in the constructors’ standings with just 66 points which is extremely disappointing for them as their closest rivals Mercedes GP are 14 points ahead of them despite the fact that they did not secure
a single podium this year.
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