• Vitaly Petrov interview

The Russian enigma

Laurence Edmondson March 16, 2011

It's hard to know what to make of Vitaly Petrov.

His rookie season in Formula One was unpredictable to say the least. There were flashes of brilliance in Hungary and Abu Dhabi - two circuits where he out qualified team-mate Robert Kubica - but it's his mistakes that stick in the mind, especially the ones at the Korean and Japanese Grands Prix.

His Renault team has kept the faith by signing him until the end of 2012, although sceptics will point to the money he brings and the doors his nationality opens in the lucrative and untapped Russian market.

In person he is open, if a little too easily distracted, but ultimately very likeable with a distinctly Russian sense of humour - he opens our interview with a single word answer and asks "Will that do?" while pretending to leave.

But his confidence and self belief were put to the test last season when he came up against one of the most formidable team-mates on the grid in Kubica. It's no secret that the pair did not have a close relationship and Petrov is on the record as saying: "You can't learn anything from him because he's a closed person." Neither driver was necessarily to blame for the lack of communication, but it had a much bigger impact on Petrov who clearly yearned for direction and advice throughout his rookie year.

Due to Kubica's rally accident he will face Nick Heidfeld in 2011, who Petrov says has been "open" with information in pre-season testing and could prove to be an easier yardstick for the Russian to measure himself against.

But ultimately it is Petrov who must improve and become more consistent, regardless of who he shares the Renault garage with. The good news is that he is fully aware of this and is already confident he can up his game.

"When you come to Formula One it is difficult to be consistent and you make mistakes," he says. "You have a lot of things to think about and change on the steering wheel, and sometimes it's really easy to forget about your driving style. You might just touch a white line that's very slippery - which normally I would never do - and then you've crashed or spun. You need to be always focussed on F1 and remember these things and last year it was just very difficult for me to do that all the time."

He's refreshingly honest for an F1 driver. There are no excuses, no ifs and buts, just a willingness to learn from his mistakes. Of course that's easier said than done, but Petrov claims to be more comfortable in his surroundings this year and is hoping that will count on the track.

"Now I can remember all the faces in my team," he jokes with a glance over to the press officer recording our conversation. "But seriously, I know much more. I know how Formula One works and how to move forward and improve. When I don't like something I know who I need to talk to to work on it. I know the tracks and I feel more experienced physically with the driving and mentally, so of course it is a big step forwards."

It would be easy to draw comparisons to Lewis Hamilton or Sebastian Vettel and point out that they picked up these basics much more quickly. But they are both products of their respective teams, bred from an early age to become F1 drivers and nurtured every step of the way.

Growing up in Russia, Petrov had no such luxuries and the fact that he has made it to F1 at all - as a pay driver or otherwise - is nothing short of remarkable. His hometown of Vyborg, near the Russian-Finnish border, is not on the motorsport map and the first rungs on the ladder to F1, such as karting and Formula Ford, simply don't exist.

"The problem at the start of my career was that my father had zero knowledge of motorsport and I had zero knowledge," he admits. "My father knew something about the boxing and football maybe, but not about racing. I suppose he knew how to do a handbrake turn - he taught me that when I was young - but that was about it. In Russia we don't have tracks, we don't have F1 teams or people, so we had to start with touring cars in the snow and in rally sprints, that kind of thing."

So vague and bizarre was his early career that his move into Russia's LADA Cup at the age of 17 was considered a significant career progression. Formula One, which he would make his debut in just nine years later, barely figured in his life at the time.

"I never even thought about it," he adds. "In my town we didn't even know what Formula One was, so I was never even thinking about it. I only started to watch it in 2002 or 2003."

Around the same time he made his first foray into single seater racing in the competitive Italian Formula Renault 2.0 championship. He also made a one-off appearance in the UK championship at Donington against the much more experienced Lewis Hamilton and, despite never seeing the circuit before, qualified just over 0.6 seconds off the Briton's pole time. From there he made steady progress through the motorsport ranks, but admits he was doing so with blind hope rather than any kind of plan.

"We tried Le Mans, F3000, GP2, so I was everywhere trying everything just to get experience and drive on the circuits. Of course it would have been easier if we had someone who could have planned it out for us over five years to take a more straightforward route to F1. At least now if I have a son I will know what to do with him; if he wants to be a racing I would know how to help him."

With his unconventional background, Petrov has already defied the odds by securing a drive at a successful team like Renault. There's no doubt that his first year left plenty of room for improvement, but if he can act on the lessons he claims to have learnt the potential is clearly there. This season is set to be the most important of his career.

Laurence Edmondson is an assistant editor on ESPNF1

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