Reports from French media suggest that well-backed Russian driver Vitaly Petrov is in line to be confirmed as Renault's second driver on Monday ahead of the opening test of the season at the Ricardo Tormo circuit in Valencia.
Petrov has been installed as the favourite for the drive alongside Robert Kubica having piqued Renault's interest by offering an intriguing combination of passable talent levels and stacks of sponsor money. The Russian is believed to have as much as 15 million Euros in personal sponsor money to give to the team.
Renault are believed to favour taking on a pay driver after their loss of title sponsor ING last year, who were due to withdraw at the end of the season, but pulled their logos from the car early after the Fixgate debacle.
And despite the presence of other drivers on Renault’s shortlist, including Takuma Sato and Nick Heidfeld, the French motoring magazine Auto Hebdo has suggested that Petrov will be unveiled in Valencia in time for him to get some practice laps in during the opening three day test of the winter.
Renault will launch their new R30 car, which speculation suggests will have a traditional Renault yellow-and-black livery, before the Valencia test.
Renault, though, have yet to make their minds up fully on the identity of their second driver, and this week Chinese driver Ho-Pin Tung told gpupdate.net that he was still in talks for a race seat, despite some reports suggesting that he had signed as a reserve driver earlier this week.
“Test driver would be nice, of course, but being one of the team's race drivers is obviously better,” Tung pointed out, somewhat obviously, “We must wait but, hopefully, we'll be able to announce something soon.”
The predicted view, though, is that Tung will become a reserve driver alongside Jerome D'Ambrosio, while Petrov will indeed drive alongside Kubica in 2010.
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