Lotus Renault GP and Virgin Racing Team officially confirm their drivers for 2011
After the official drivers’ list was released by the FIA, it was revealed that Lotus Renault GP, Virgin Racing Team, Force India, Hispania Racing Team and STR Ferrari did not confirm their drivers’ list for the 2011 Formula 1 season.
Renault confirmed that they will be keeping Robert Kubica for another year and recently, the team announced that they have signed the Russian driver Vitaly Petrov for another season as well.
Despite the developments between the team and the 2007 Formula 1 world champion Kimi Raikkonen several weeks ago, Lotus Renault GP finally decided that it would be better to keep Vitaly since a Russian Grand Prix is expected to become a part of the 2012
Formula 1 calendar and as a result, the team signed a contract with him that will stay in effect until 2012.
Vitaly Petrov was unable to outperform or perform anywhere near his teammate Robert Kubica and it was quite obvious as Robert gave an extraordinary performance this year. On the other hand, the 2010 Formula 1 season was Petrov’s debut season and it is quite
understandable why he was unable to perform up to the mark alongside his teammate.
However, Vitaly was able to prove that he has the pace to compete against the best of the sport at the grand finale in Abu Dhabi as he was able to keep Fernando Alonso, the championship leader back then, behind his Renault for more than 40 laps. Many believe
that this performance earned the young Russian a seat with Renault for another 2 years.
On the other hand, Virgin Racing Team did not reveal either of its drivers in the official report but the team recently revealed that they are going to keep Timo Glock for another year. However, they also announced that they have officially signed Jerome
d’Ambrosio for the 2011 Formula 1 season. The young Belgian was a former GP2 Asian Series driver and it seems that the team believes that he is a better option than Luca di Grassi from last year.
However, di Grassi won Felipe Massa’s charity karting event shortly after this announcement. Luca finished ahead of Massa, Rubens Barrichello and Jaime Alguersuari. This was quite an impressive result for Luca di Grassi and Virgin Racing team might regret
their decision later on.
There are still 6 undecided spots left up for the grabs as HRT, Force India and STR Ferrari are still thinking about their choices for the 2011 Formula 1 season.
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