Renault with a Russian and new colours
Renault have now launched their car and announced the driver to partner Robert Kubica. Vitaly Petrov will pilot the second Renault for 2010, he makes history as the first Russian to enter F1, no mention of the money he could bring though.
The new Renault doesn’t look as sharp as the McLaren or the Ferrari but the 2005/6 cars didn’t either and look what they did. I love the new colour scheme though it does remind me somewhat of Eddie Jordan’s team. It will look good on track, and if their design team has managed to stay insulated from all the happenings at the team over the past 12 months they might produce something – I guess we’ll have to wait until Bahrain to see if they have managed it.
Vitaly Petrov seems an odd choice as the second driver but I guess they couldn’t have done worse than Romain Grosjean. He enters the team having been runner up in GP2 with two wins, not the most stellar CV but it’s not like all the current F1 drivers won every championship they entered. He’s the first Russian driver which means that it will open up all manner of sponsorship deals though Renault have denied that this would influence the decision making process, it does make me wonder though as Nick Heidfeld is still out of contract and clearly a more reliable choice – though that would be both BMW drivers.
The car looks good and will start testing so we’ll see it in action soon, the driver partnership will add another rookie to the 2010 field which is fast becoming (if not already) the least experienced in recent history I wonder whether they will regret that decision later.
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