The question is really one of who will be on the Renault F1 board and what do they want from F1. The board of directors will decide what is best for the team overall. He will say what it is best for the team on the ground. This is not something that Boullier would decide. Hiring Nick Heidfeld might excite a few folk in Mönchengladbach, but it is not going to land the team the big buck sponsors. Not just for the Renault team, not just for the sport as a whole, but also as a way for team owner Gérard Lopez and his partners to create business opportunities in Russia. Petrov is a man who is clearly someone with potential as a driver, but he also has immense potential for marketing. However, life is never quite that simple.

On paper he is probably a better choice than Vitaly. Nick is quick, cheap and available and has a lot of experience. He has also tended to let the pressure get to him on occasion and needs to be toughened up, although that will probably happen if he does get a second chance with the team.Īre there better choices for Boullier? Well, yes, he might be tempted to go for a good solid performer like Nick Heidfeld, who has shown himself to be quite capable of being Robert Kubica’s team-mate. The Russian is, I am told, not very good at communicating with his engineers, in part because of his character and in part because English is not his language of choice. There is no doubt that Petrov will do a better job in 2011, because he has a lot more experience.

He scored the best result of all the new boys with fifth place in Hungary, but Kamui Kobayashi finished the year with more points. Vitaly had a pretty decent first year in Formula 1, apart from having had a few too many crashes. The question he needs to address is whether Petrov is that man. Team Principal Eric Boullier is a racer and thus his choice will always be to get the best available driver. If not, the decision would already have been made. The Renault F1 team has yet to decide what it is going to do about a second driver in 2011 and that means that there are a lot of elements included in the decision.

Download lotus renault f1 2011 for free