Nelsinho Piquet is well aware that he has much to learn over the course of his maiden
Formula 1 campaign in 2008, but if the car is capable of winning races, he asserts, then that is exactly what he will be aiming to do.
The young Brazilian rookie has been promoted to a race driving role with Renault this season, following a year spent testing for the
Régie. He will make his grand prix bow alongside double world champion
Fernando Alonso, and insists it is a golden opportunity to make his mark.
“I wanted it to happen so badly,” the son of former three-time title-winner Nelson Piquet admitted, “and now it has I'm really happy. Last year I had a great time with the team and got to know everybody from the factory and race and test teams. It's perfect; I'm with the team I wanted to be with.
“I don't have anything to prove but I do have a lot to learn, especially from Fernando, and I will be listening hard. I have to learn a lot of tracks and become familiar with driving the car. Formula 1 cars are not easy to get used to, but I still have a lot of time to do that before the first race.”
The 22-year-old has not set himself any specific goals for the season ahead – save for extracting the maximum out of the car of which it is capable – but he did assure that there would be no danger of any repeat of the kind of fractious relationship that developed between Alonso and
Lewis Hamilton at
McLaren in 2007, reasoning that “Flavio [Briatore – Renault
F1 managing director] is a much better boss and he won't let that happen”.
“The atmosphere is perfect here at
Renault,” he added, “especially now we have Fernando back. Flavio is a really good team manager, and we have good engineers and mechanics. There's nothing to complain about.
“I'm sure if they won the championship once they can do it again. Everything depends on how well we can progress with the car. If the car is capable of podiums I will try to get podiums, and if it's good enough to win I will try to win. Every driver and every team enters races and championships to be the quickest and to win.”
