Renault driver Vitaly Petrov’s performance in the 2011 Formula 1 season so far
Vitaly Petrov, who was the GP2 Series driver, is currently driving for Renault-Lotus GP Formula 1 team. The team driver is performing not so well for his team in the 2011 season following his strong start.
Renault F1 team brought the Russian to the mainstream in 2010, where he took part in 19 races. After learning the different and new aspects of the sport, Petrov finished his first F1 season at the 13th place in the drivers’
championship with 27 points.
After his debut in Formula 1 racing in the last season, the team driver was very excited for his second season with Renault, as he admitted that he had a great time with them throughout the 2010 F1 season.
The 26-year-old driver took a positive start in the ongoing season, as he finished his first race on the last stair of the podium in the Australian Grand Prix. The race results were very impressive for the team, and after that they were expecting a lot of
points from him for the next race weekends of this season.
The Enstone-based outfit driver participated in the 2011 Malaysian Grand Prix with hopes of winning another podium place. However, due to suffering with an accident after completing 52 laps of the Sepang race Petrov could not finish his best run and ended
up at the 17th place.
In the following grand prix, Petrov tried his best and registered his position in the top ten after struggling a lot on the new 2011 Pirelli tyres. He started his Chinese Grand Prix from the 10th place on the opening
grid and came at the ninth place ahead of Sauber’s Kamui Kobayashi, who was at the 10th position in Shanghai.
In the Turkish Grand Prix, Petrov was 68.1 seconds slower than Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel, who was the winner of the race. The Russian came at the eighth place in the final race classifications.
The Renault driver was unable to perform well on the grid in the Spanish Grand Prix, as his car was unable to support him during the race. After starting from the sixth place, he finished his run in the 11th spot after
struggling with his car.
The 2011 Monaco GP proved as unlucky for Petrov, as he retired from race due to the violent accident after completing 67 laps.
The team driver bounced back on the F1 grid in the Canadian Grand Prix, where he made a lot of improvements in terms of performance in the wet conditions. He ended his race in the fifth place after starting from the 10th
position on the grid running on the sets of supersoft and soft tyres by Pirelli.
The unsupportive role of Petrov’s car pushed him back on the midfield in the 2011 European Grand Prix. He started the Grand Prix from the 11th place on the racetrack and finished in the 15th spot
after struggling with his R31 car.
The team made several changes in their car for getting better results in the remainder of the season. In the British Grand Prix, Petrov was 80.6 seconds off the pace of Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso, who was the winner of the race. He finished his 2011 Silverstone
race at the 12th place after running on the sets of soft and medium compounds.
In the German Grand Prix, Petrov could not close his gap to the top-runners due to lack of his car’s pace.
The Hungarian Grand Prix was not so good for Renault driver, because he was again slow on the racetrack and came at the 12th place in the final race classifications.
Let’s see how he performs his next races of the 2011 Formula 1 season following his disappointing last few races.
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