Vitaly Petrov has described the upgrades applied to Renault’s car as ‘a big step forward’ following Sunday’s Belgian Grand Prix, with the Russian recording his biggest points haul since Canada back in June. The 2009 GP2 runner-up had been on course to finish eighth, but worsening brake issues saw him drop to ninth on the final lap of the race.
"I think we’ve made a big step forward with the car, and you can see that I was in top ten contention for all of the race - and close to the Mercedes - so we need to keep working in this direction," said Petrov, who was joined at Renault by Bruno Senna this weekend. "Our strategy was good, however we lost out on our top speed which meant I found it very difficult to overtake.
"The car was very strong on the corners, and we were very good on the brakes until I had issues at the end. For the final laps I was driving differently to compensate for the brake concerns, but unfortunately I spun right at the end as I had totally lost my front brakes. Looking at the performance of the weekend, overall I’m quite happy."
Further post-race feelings from Renault:
Senna apologises to Alguersuari
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| Pos. | Driver | Team | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. |  S. Vettel | Red Bull | 1:26:44.893 |
| 2. | M. Webber | Red Bull | +3.741 |
| 3. | J. Button | McLaren | +9.669 |
| 4. | F. Alonso | Ferrari | +13.022 |
| 5. | M. Schumacher | Mercedes | +74.464 |
| 6. | N. Rosberg | Mercedes | +48.674 |
| 7. | A. Sutil | Force India | +59.713 |
| 8. | F. Massa | Ferrari | +1:06.076 |
| 9. | V. Petrov | Lotus Renault | +1:11.917 |
| 10. | P. Maldonado | Williams | +1:17.615 |
| Full results | |||
| Vitaly Petrov | |||
|---|---|---|---|
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| More Vitaly Petrov photos | |||
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