Fairuz Fauzy to become reserve driver in Team Lotus?

Posted by Harvinder

November 10, 2009

Malaysian Fairuz Fauzy who has been linked with Malaysia’s Team Lotus ever since the new team was granted an entry into Formula 1 will most probably join the team as a reserve or third driver. The team’s technical chief told The Star, “Fairuz will be in the team probably as a reserve driver or a test driver. He has the talent but we don’t want him to ‘crash and burn’ in the race because of his inexperience.”

“Take (Fernando) Alonso for example. He was signed as a test driver and didn’t get a race seat until after three years with Renault and he went on to win trophies. This is exactly what we want with Fairuz, for him to have enough experience because racing in the Formula One is at a much higher level than he used to,” said Gascoyne.

“If you ask any young driver if they’re ready for Formula One, their answer will be ‘yes’. But at the end of the day, it’s experience that matters when racing in Formula One,” he concluded. It makes sense and I am pretty sure that the team wants to avoid the Alex Yoong-Minardi issue, where in my honest opinion, Alex wasn’t ready for Formula 1 when he joined Minardi in 2001, although he did much better when he was in A1 GP and even collected a few wins.

Due to his inexperience at the time, Alex even failed to set qualifying lap times that are within 107% of the pole sitter’s time on several occasions. This is what happens when you rush a driver to race in Formula 1 when he or she is not ready. If that is the case, who will take on the race seats for the team? Jarno Trulli and Kamui Kobayashi perhaps?

Source.