HRT driver Daniel Ricciardo hints at joining Lotus from 2012 – Formula 1 news
Daniel Ricciardo has admitted that he might be a part of Lotus from 2012 replacing Jarno Trulli.
Ricciardo made his debut in 2011 driving for Hispania Racing Team. The HRT driver did not perform as well as he would have liked during the season. He failed to score even a single point for his team and his best position during the whole season was 18.
Although those figures are not indicative of the Aussie’s potential as he did not have a competitive car and his debut season also needs to be taken into consideration.
Earlier there were talks that Ricciardo might be looking to join Toro Rosso, but because of strong showings from both of their current drivers’ Sebastien Buemi and Jaime Alguersuari, it is unlikely that they will lose out on their seats.
“At the moment it seems like Toro Rosso are going to stay with who they've got,” Ricciardo told the West Australian. “It wasn't put down 100 per cent, but it was the wording I was making out.”
“There's a good chance if I'm on the grid next year it's going to be with another non-Red Bull outfit, but I guess the good news is I'm still contracted by Red Bull. They've agreed to continue with me,” he further added.
Lotus, set to be renamed Caterham from 2012 season, will be using Red Bull gearboxes and KERS from 2012, which makes Ricciardo who was a test driver for Toro Rosso before joining HRT, an even better proposition for the team to replace Trulli.
Ricciardo though is upbeat over his chances of joining Lotus (Caterham), which he feels would be a step up from his debut season with HRT. He also mentioned that he does not feel that HRT will be scoring any points in 2012 either and will most probably be
at the further end of the table in Constructors’ championship, but expressed that the team is making slow progress.
The young driver though was delighted at the prospect of driving aside Heikki Kovalainen who has won a Grand Prix.
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