Interestingly Virgin has just confirmed that Belgian GP2 competitor Jerome d’Ambrosio has been inked as its Friday morning test driver for the next four Grand Prix outings, replacing current Virgin F1 driver Lucas di Grassi, albeit Di Grassi will keep his race seat until the end of the season, with an option unexercised for 2011...
As the move is similar to what Force India is currently doing with Paul di Resta and Adrian Sutil at the moment.
While Virgin has disclosed the Team’s second seat will run it’s holder a cool $5.0m Euros next year, as its worth noting that d’Ambrosio is a protégé of Gerard Lopez’s Gravity Sports Management, as in the same Lopez who controls GenII Capitol, the parent company of the Renault F1 team. Thus is d’Ambrosio simply garnering his F1 superlicense in time for a 2011 drive in order to put pressure upon Petrov and Di Grassi? While d’Ambrosio will also participate in the season ending F1 Young Drivers test program after the Abu Dhabi GP...
