Jarno Trulli is holding no responsibility over the fact that Formula 1 is deprived of Italian drivers for the first time since 1969. At the end of last week, Caterham announced that he had been replaced for 2012 by Vitaly Petrov, with the Russian having been dropped by Lotus Renault GP at the end of last season.
The end of Trulli’s F1 tenure comes suddenly but somewhat expectedly, with a number of reports having linked Petrov to Caterham in recent months; the latter will join Heikki Kovalainen, who continues with the team for a third term.
“It’s a shame there are no Italian drivers in Formula 1 now,” Trulli told Italy’s ANSA news agency. “I'm sorry, but it’s not my problem; others must take responsibility for this situation, which didn’t just start yesterday - people have not woken up to that yet.
“In Italy there are no systems to help drivers reach the top level, so it's only normal that we have reached a situation like this. There are talents out there but, if nobody supports them, there's no hope.”
Trulli made his F1 debut with Minardi in 1997, then starring with Prost by leading that year’s Austrian Grand Prix. A sole victory came with Renault, at Monaco in 2004, and he was a regular front-runner with Toyota in 2005. The switch to Caterham (then Lotus Racing) came in 2010, although he was regularly out-shone by Kovalainen.
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