Jerome d’Ambrosio replaces Lucas di Grassi in Virgin Racing Team for 2011 season – Formula 1 news
25-year-old Belgian, Jerome d’Ambrosio has been confirmed by the Virgin Racing Team for the 2011 season after Lucas di Grassi was dropped.
He was the reserve driver for VRT in the 2010 season and also raced in the Japanese Grand Prix as a reserve driver. However, this time it will be his official debut.
He will be a Belgian driver after 17 years, the previous being Philipe Adams who raced in 1994 for Lotus.
He said, “It's been 17 years, yeah [since Philipe Adams] – it's something fantastic, but now I have to get the most out of this chance.”
He has replaced di Grassi, as the critics say, due to heavy sponsorship of Gravity Sport Management which he brings to a one-year-old Virgin team although team Principal John Booth insists that he is there on merit.
Jerome’s manager, the Renault team Principal, Eric Boullier has claimed in the past that the Belgian will get to drive for Virgin Racing.
Jerome started Karting in 1995 and was the three-time Belgian champion, winning in mini class, junior and Formula A. He then moved to Belgian Formula Renault driving for Thierry Boutsen's team. He moved to French Formula Renault in 2004 where he managed
to secure a 4th position.
Then he switched to Italian Formula Renault in 2005 also finishing 4th. In 2006, he was left out of the Formula Renault 3.5 series, the highest level in Renault, after not scoring a point in four races.
Jerome won the inaugural season of International Formula Master Series in 2007 and became the first to win it. He won five races and secured 100 points playing with Cram Competition team. He competed in both GP2 series and GP2 Asia series in 2008. He finished
11th in GP2 and 2nd in GP2 Asia series without even wining a single race. He remained with DAMS in 2009 and secured 9th position and remained with the team for the 2010 season as part of the Renault Formula 1 team he took victory
at Monaco but was later rested in favour of Romain Grosjean.
Later, in the same year, he was announced the reserve driver for Renault F1 due to the sponsors company who backed him. In December 2010, Virgin Racing confirmed Jerome for the 2011 season along with Timo Glock.
On Friday, he was finally put in Lucas’ car for the practice session in Singapore. After he broke the news last year on a local TV network, he said that he is overwhelmed with congratulations coming from the Belgian fans.
“The other day I went into a couple of shops and both times they recognized me that was a first for me,” he said.
He also seemed concerned about the Spa-Francorchamps as the fans will be expecting most out of it.
He said, “For me, Spa is very important, Silverstone will be special too, because it's the home race for the team– Becketts, Copse, everything is special – but also Monaco, Suzuka...”
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