Renault co-owner Gerard Lopez has heaped praise on Robert Kubica and Vitaly Petrov, as well as the team as a whole, following the Enstone squad’s impressive start to the season.
The former world champion squad has begun its new era under the majority control of Lopez’s Genii Capital investment group in promising fashion, Kubica having claimed a second-place finish in Australia already which has helped the team to fifth in the constructors’ standings.
Kubica was hired to spearhead the team’s resurgence following the departure of Fernando Alonso and Lopez has no doubt that the team has a future world champion on its books.
“I knew Robert from BMW, even before he was an F1 [race] driver there,” Lopez told speedtv.com.
“I’m a very strong believer that on pure speed and character he’s one of the few that deserves a world championship at some time.”
The Spanish entrepreneur also praised rookie Petrov’s performance at the last round in China when the Russian recovered from a spin to claim his first Formula 1 points in seventh in the rain-hit race.
“I’m pleased with Vitaly, and how he recovered from a rookie mistake, when he spun out,” Lopez added.
“Rain is a great leveller, and rain tells you a lot about drivers, because it levels the playing field much more. So the job he did was amazing in rain conditions.”
Renault laid the foundations for its fifth and seventh place finishes in Shanghai when it was the only team to keep both of its cars out on slick tyres in the early showery conditions – the kind of correct calls Lopez believes the team has been making since Bahrain.
“It was a good race for us,” said Lopez.
“The basis was the fact that again the team made no mistakes, and made the right decisions, and they’ve been doing that since the beginning of the season.”
The Enstone team will continue its aggressive development path with a further package of upgrades for Barcelona next week and Lopez says ensuring it starts races further up the grid is its next target.
“In qualifying Robert is pretty much where we are supposed to be right now, between sixth and eighth probably, with Vitaly scratching around for 10th, which is great for a rookie obviously," he added.
"In the races we’re better. The car is where we expected in the races, and we’re working very hard to get it up to speed in qualifying.”
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