Flavio Briatore has lauded
Nelsinho Piquet as ‘the future', and described the young Brazilian as the perfect foil to
Renault's talisman driver
Fernando Alonso, as the
Régie bids to fight back from a distinctly below-par 2007 campaign.
Piquet was promoted to the race team from the test driving role he had held last year, and has admitted he will have much to get to grips during his debut season in the top flight. He has been equally clear, however, that he could ask for no better teacher than former double world champion Alonso, sentiments Briatore wholeheartedly echoes.
“Nelsinho is the future,” Renault
F1's managing director underlined, “and when you have one guy like Alonso you also need to have somebody in the line-up who can learn from him. I think if we want to invest in the future it makes much more sense to have a rookie like Piquet in the car.
“Nelsinho has a lot to learn, but he is in a fantastic position. He won't go up in confrontation with Fernando, because I think he would lose, but he is very intelligent and motivated, he wants to learn and he's part of the team. He is a young driver, just 21, and I believe one, two or three years with Fernando will be fantastic for him to learn. I hope we will have Fernando and Nelsinho together for many years to come.”
The Italian – who also worked with ‘big Nelson' during Piquet Snr's stint at Benetton in 1990 and 1991, and characterised the three-time title-winner as ‘very quick and very smart' – was quick to respond to criticism that this time last year he had tipped
Heikki Kovalainen as being the future, only to subsequently offload the Finn in favour of Piquet, some believe because he feared Kovalainen would present Alonso with too great a challenge.
“The future has changed,” he retorted. “Sometimes you have a girlfriend you believe is your future, then you meet a better one and the future has suddenly changed… Maybe Heikki will come back to us one day; people love Renault so much they all want to come back!
