Están tuanis los colores originales reno, ojalá sirva de algo y no salga un anafre. Llega Petrov, primer ruso en la F1 y con muchos petrovdolares
Renault confirma a Petrov como compañero de Kubica
* La escudería recupera los colores (amarillo y negro) con los que en 1978 llegó a la Fórmula 1.
Renault presentó su nuevo coche en Cheste, el R30, un monoplaza sin demasiados cambios aparentes a pesar del mal rendimiento de la pasada temporada, y confirmó que el ruso Vitaly Petrov será el compañero del polaco Robert Kubica.
El nuevo R30 fue presentado por Petrov y Kubica, que formarán la pareja de pilotos titulares en el primer año de la era 'post Alonso'. Petrov, primer ruso en la historia del Mundial de Fórmula 1, tiene 25 años y en 2009 fue el subcampeón de las GP2 Series.
El R30 fue presentado con los nuevos colores de Renault -amarillo y negro- tras la salida del banco holandés ING como patrocinador principal a mitad de la temporada pasada por el escándalo del GP de Singapur del 2008.
Renault recupera así los colores con los que en 1978 llegó a la Fórmula 1. El coche también incorpora una cubierta de motor similar al de una aleta de tiburón, como los que llevan los McLaren y los BMW Sauber.
Vitaly Petrov will race for Renault in 2010 and becomes Russia’s first ever F1 driver.
The 25 year-old, who has spent the last three-and-a-half seasons racing in GP2, was announced as the team mate for Robert Kubica by Renault at the launch of their R30 today.
The team also confirmed Jerome D’Ambrosio and Ho-Pin Tung will be its test drivers. The pair are both run by the Gravity management company owned by Gerard Lopez, who bought control of the Renault team over the winter.
Russia’s first F1 driver
Russia is not known for having a thriving national racing scene and Petrov won several races in low-level competitions – including the 2002 Lada Cup.
He pursued his racing career by competing in Formula Renault championships in Europe before moving up to the Euroseries 3000 in 2006. He placed third overall, with one win.
That year he also moved up to GP2, spending the second half of the season with DPR. He joined Campos the following year and remained with them for three seasons, which is unusual for a driver in F1’s feeder series.
Experience has served him well and he achieved better results with each passing season – 13th overall in 2007, seventh in 2008 and second last year.
It’s quite appropriate that Petrov’s F1 drive should be announced at Valencia because both its racing tracks have been kind to him in recent years. He scored his first GP2 win at the Ricardo Tormo circuit in 2007, and won on the street track in 2008 and 2009.
If he’s failed to capture the imagination of those looking for a future F1 star it’s perhaps because he’s not rocketed through the championship the way Lewis Hamilton and last year’s champion Nico Hülkenberg did – though they both benefitted from being born in countries with a much stronger racing heritage than Russia has.
Petrov will be the first Russian to race in F1. However the country has already had an F1 team, in the form of Midland Group, which took over Jordan in 2005 and ran it as Midland F1 in 2006 before selling it to Dutch car manufacturer Spyker.
