Lotus Renault GP name Romain Grosjean as their reserve driver for the 2011 Formula 1 season
Romain Grosjean was recently named as Lotus Renault GP’s test/reserve driver recently and now, the drivers’ seats for the 2011 Formula 1 season are almost filled.
Romain was unable to drive for Renault in 2010 even though he was the test/reserve driver for them in 2009 and it seemed that the young driver might not be able to secure a place in Formula 1 for a couple of years or so.
“2011 will be my comeback year with a third driver spot at Lotus Renault and a whole season in GP2 and GP2 Asia with the DAMS team. It is true that we were far apart on the grid, but when you're two or three tenths behind him in qualifying and the race,
you can't say it was so bad,” said Grosjean.
Grosjean, who made his racing debut with team Renault in 2009 after Nelson Piquet Junior dropped out of the team, was unable to secure a single point in 7 races even though his teammate Fernando Alonso was performed very well in the same piece of machinery.
“To be third pilot ... allows me to gain a huge amount of experience, to be in the paddock, to see people, and to understand what I was lacking in my first Formula One experience. Now my idea is to be a race driver in 2012,” he added.
At first, there were a lot of rumours that the young Malaysian driver Fairuz Fauzy has signed with the team as their reserve driver but it seems that it is not true.
However, the team has its hopes high for 2011 and since they claim that they have a “race winning” car this year, it would be interesting to see how they perform and how Romain performs at some of the Friday practice sessions and test sessions in the 2011
Formula 1 season alongside Robert Kubica and Vitaly Petrov.
“In motor sport you always need to be in the right place at the right time. When I got to Renault, this was certainly not the case. From a performance side, I was never ashamed of what I was able to do compared to [team-mate] Fernando Alonso,” Romain stated.
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