At a time when Alpine considers the future of its driver academy, following its somewhat maladroit handling of Oscar Piastri and subsequent ill feelings towards his McLaren-bound scarpering, it’s coincidental that one of its former products is also hunting around for a new job.
The Alpine Academy lineage traces back to the Renault young driver programme, which brought through the likes of Lucas di Grassi, Romain Grosjean and Nelson Piquet Jr into F1 during the late 2000s. It also handed Jerome D’Ambrosio, formerly the Venturi Formula E team principal, support on his way to the top echelon of racing.
After impressing in a handful of practice outings for the inexperienced Virgin F1 team in 2010, ironically replacing the driver he would later manage at Venturi in di Grassi, D’Ambrosio got the nod at the team for 2011. There, he drove alongside Timo Glock for a sole season as a full-time driver, before joining Lotus as a reserve driver. It’s often forgotten that the Belgian later deputised for Grosjean in 2012 at the team, when the now-Andretti IndyCar driver was slapped with a one-race ban for playing skittles at Spa’s opening corner.
But D’Ambrosio picks neither of the cars he raced in F1 as his favourite. Instead, he offers the Renault R30 from the 2010 season as his most-treasured experience behind the wheel. The yellow-and-black machine looked glorious in its bumblebee livery and, according to the Bruxellois, was particularly handy on-track when he was afforded the chance to get his mitts on it.
“It was the fastest Formula 1 car I think I’ve driven,” D’Ambrosio remembers. “My last grand prix in Monza was also special with Lotus. But obviously it’s Monza downforce, so it’s a bit different. But that car that we had in 2010, and in Abu Dhabi testing as a young driver, it’ll stick with me as the most incredible feeling I felt in a racing car – just in terms of pure speed and everything.
It’s probably symbolic of the Virgin/Marussia team’s time in F1 that D’Ambrosio’s favourite car is a) one that he tested for only one day, and b) belonged to another team. Still, the R30 was an underrated machine, one that Kubica took to three podiums in a competitive F1 season. The Pole was tasked with setting Renault back on course after a miserable 2009 both on- and off-track, scoring three podiums in 2010. Memorably, Kubica was within touching distance of claiming pole for the Monaco Grand Prix, before Mark Webber swiped it away…
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