well, I am not happy that Petrov is apparently leaving F1, but:
Lotus Renault made a bet on cash with some talent in this year: Petrov and Senna.
Now we are going to see a situation of making bet on talent: Kimi and Grosjean. They might have better results.
Wolfie - as I see from numerous interviews he had 'conditional' contract for next year. possibly based on performance, possibly on something else. Why was his manager 'negotiating some conditions' otherwise?
yep, her quote were published that cooperation between Lotus and Vitaly hasn't stopped but will be in other form (with no mention what kind of form).
she also said that he might be in other team and she can't tell about sponsors, since they can finalise anything when they move closer to actual agreements. I think we can read it as - we don't have sponsors, only some promises and will be dealing with them when we have another promise from the F1 team and will try to make it all together. not really a bright side of the situation
I think Grosjean is promising. To judge him in his '09 season with 5 races or so is unfair, first of all there was no testing when he joined, second of all he was Alonso's team mate, third of all the team was in disarry, and fourth of all the whole team was concentrating on Alonso.
Not nice for the lad, he was promising in GP2 in his first half season, he was great in the GT car series he was in, and has won GP2 in this year.
I have heard he's arrogant and makes stupid comments, but it doesn't mean he doesn't deserve a chance, he is 25 years old, that's not that young in F1 anymore.
As for Petrov, it's a shame he's out, but you can say he only has himself to blame, only scoring 3 more points than Heidfeld with 8 more races.
The car wasn't that bad, it was capable of scoring points, fair enough he was taking out in Monza, but he made mistakes in Korea and India (team were also to blame there) when points where on.
I like the guy, he's exciting, but you can't say he was great in the second half of the season.
I think team managers should evaluate a driver on the whole year overall, not just u're as good as your last race... this is very myopic bcos each race has different outcomes... as we can see last year's fight, Vettel could perform better in the second half bcos of many issues, and many were not his fault. Sometimes the starting point has better results bcos the car was better at the start and then in-season development by competitors puts earlier better teams to the test and who knows, as Lotus admitted, the car went backwards....so it should not fall on the shoulders of the drivers ... I am already fearing what will happen to kimi with this new development... plus Grosjean is french, supported by Lopez & Boullier... they may have th plan to just kick kimi out after a while, saves them money and they got the publicity for it etc. Sorry, this is the pessimist in me... I have no faith in these people to be fair and ethical ... good luck to Kimi s" title="reds" />
Zitat von JinxI think team managers should evaluate a driver on the whole year overall, not just u're as good as your last race... this is very myopic bcos each race has different outcomes... as we can see last year's fight, Vettel could perform better in the second half bcos of many issues, and many were not his fault. Sometimes the starting point has better results bcos the car was better at the start and then in-season development by competitors puts earlier better teams to the test and who knows, as Lotus admitted, the car went backwards....so it should not fall on the shoulders of the drivers ... I am already fearing what will happen to kimi with this new development... plus Grosjean is french, supported by Lopez & Boullier... they may have th plan to just kick kimi out after a while, saves them money and they got the publicity for it etc. Sorry, this is the pessimist in me... I have no faith in these people to be fair and ethical ... good luck to Kimi
The car might have went backwards, but it was capable of scoring points in every race apart from Singapore, both drivers where running well at times but got into problems by themselves. Petrov only scored 5 points from Belgium onwards, and in most races, the car was capable of getting around 8th-10th, and quite high in Monza (but he got taken out).
Even if you evaluate the full season, Petrov does come across as a bit 'meh' after Melbourne.
Petrov will be competing with Kubica for a place in Ferrari. Apparently Phillips Morris and Santander are interested to have East European driver there and it can be either of them. If it happens he would be test driver only
Martin Brundle (and a few others) seems to believe Petrov will go to Caherham...
ZitatMBrundleF1 Martin Brundle Suspect Vitaly Petrov may re emerge at Caterham F1 (formerly Team Lotus) in 2012. Music has stopped, there'll be a mad scramble for seats
Zitatf1enigma Dimitris PAPADOPOULO Is this the guy with more $$$ that Ricciardo?"@MBrundleF1: Suspect Vitaly Petrov may re emerge at Caterham F1 (formerly Team Lotus) in 2012"
ZitatTheF1Tweeter Jordan Hamilton #F1 Interesting to see that Martin Brundle believes Petrov may well join Caterham for 2012, Heikki and Vitaly, good lineup?