http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/77006 Renault has confirmed that Nelson Piquet will remain with the team for the Hungarian Grand Prix, after renewed speculation about his future surfaced during the Nurburgring weekend. Piquet has yet to score this season, and has only outqualified his team-mate Fernando Alonso once in two and a half seasons. AUTOSPORT understands that a performance clause in the Brazilian's contract could have allowed Renault to drop him after the German race, and team boss Flavio Briatore initially refused to confirm that he would be kept on. But Renault has now entered Piquet for the Hungaroring as usual, and he is optimistic that he will be much stronger next weekend as from Hungary his car will also receive the upgrades that Alonso used in Germany. It is believed that his contract stipulates equal equipment to his team-mate, so he is being given a further opportunity to show what he is capable of. "I pushed hard, but my car didn't have the new updates that Fernando had and it was difficult to make much progress or match Fernando's pace," Piquet said of his Nurburgring race, which saw him fall from 10th on the grid to finish 13th. "I should have the same upgrades as Fernando in Hungary and I think I can be more competitive. As always I will be aiming to qualify in the top ten and hopefully score some points in the race." Piquet reckons his previous strong form at the Hungaroring will also help him achieve a better result next weekend. "I enjoyed Hungary last year and it was probably one of my best races as I finished sixth," he said. "It's also a circuit where I won in GP2." Past and former Renault test drivers Romain Grosjean and Lucas di Grassi, both currently competing in GP2, had been touted as the potential replacements if Renault had decided to part company with Piquet. What was that?
Once again he manages to save his a$$ I guess a lot of people in the world would like to have so many chances to screw up and be given a second chance again and again..
You were right, I was wrong. Hat off to you! Too bad Renault keeps this idiot. Every time he is in the car it is a wasted opportunity for a truly talented young driver waiting by the side.
True! IMO Piquet may still be thrown under the bus as a sacrifice. How does Renault F1 explain its customer Red Bull Racing team has blown the socks off the factory team this year. Team personnel needs a shake up pronto.
For sure, but I must admit that this season has me a little dazed. It seems really difficult to discern who's making progress, who's driving well, how big of an impact KERS is having, how the diffusers are making an impact, etc. so it's hard to say really where Renault stands. Toyota has been ALL OVER the map in terms of performance.
+1 Great observations! To those who claim F1 is "boring" and the whole things "fixed", I say, BAH, HUMBUG! I agree - Toyota have gone from a front row lockout to a back row lockout (?) in the space of a race or two....WTF? Cheers, Ian
perhaps Flavio can't be bothered with paying Piquet and a potential lawsuit by hiring another driver in his place. He knows he isn't going to gain much with it with even alonso struggling a lot. I'm confident we don't see him for renault next season though.
I just had a little inside information on this one, that's all. Lots of rumors out there this time of year, some are true, many are not.
Cheers to your bah, humbug! A large part of the variance of this season is how closely matched all of the cars seem to be (which is incredible considering that they are all built independently from "scratch".) Your front row, back row comment inspired me to look up the results from Monaco. In Q1, the entire field was separated by 1.578 seconds! Even taking into consideration the fastest lap time vs. slowest in qualifying, the spread is still a meager 1.886 seconds.
Aha! That helps. Anyway, you called it right and Mr. Hotshot F1-Insider Benoit didn't. However because only Benoit reported the story and not e.g. motorsportaktuell I wasn't going out on a limb taking a bet. On a somewhat related note: Only Benoit stated as fact that Toyota would announce their retirement now. Well, that hasn't happened either. So he gets the FOTA/FIA war outcome and Bourdais right, but wrongly predicts Piquet and Toyota.
The rumors are back: Now the word on the street is, that Hungary will be Piquet's last race (I really hope so!). The reason they let him drive that GP is because he is very good at Hungary. The problem that Renault has, is that they have no replacement waiting where they knew the guy would be better than Piquet (sounds hard to believe to me).
There really isn't a better choice right now. Other than a driver that's already on grid now it would be a huge risk to put another driver that's unfamiliar with current F1 cars. Much less a rookie like Grosjean.
What about all the experienced reserve/test drivers sitting around. One would think they should be ever valuable with lack of testing these days.
If he's crap, then why even bother. A few races' experience before next season would be invaluable to any rookie coming in.
Acclimated rookie next season= points for rookie= points for team. And the oppurtunity cost isn't very high when your current driver is Piquet.
I've commented somewhere else that Bourdais might be a possibility.....French team, French driver...I'd love nothing more than to see him trounce STR. Carol
Kind of sux that Bourdais will have his performance in the old STR car compared with the kid's with the complete aero upgrade package. Would be interesting at least to see him in another F1 car. Give us a better frame of reference to judge from.
Bourdais will have his performance compared with two rookies he drove along side using the same equipment two different seasons. His replacement has nothing to do with how relatively slow he is. All I've come to see from his time in F1 is that he's a whiny little girl.
