Vitaly Petrov

Vitaly Petrov is another GP2 driver to make the move to F1 – he joins the Renault team after being beaten to the GP2 title by Nico Hulkenberg who takes a seat at Williams. He has taken a while to move through GP2 – five years – but he took his best result last year and has been rewarded with an F1 drive.

With his early racing career spent in Russia he has some pretty impressive results. The move to the European formula kept the results going to some extent and he’s gradually moved through the ranks of GP2, it’s not the meteoric rise of a young star (he mid twenties) but it will give him the maturity to work at what he’s got. Given his history it might take him a while to get up to speed with F1 and he’ll find no quarter given from his team mate Robert Kubica who has got his own career to think of. It the Renault isn’t good then he’s going to be wanting to impress one of the better teams.

Petrov will have to push Kubica to ensure that he keeps his seat for the whole season as Renault are notoriously brutal with their drivers, he’ll need to master F1 quickly to succeed.

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