Vitaly Petrov graduates to Formula One this year with the Renault team after a successful campaign in GP2 last year that saw him finish as the runner-up in the championship. The Russian driver this weekend makes his F1 debut in Bahrain and is looking forward to the challenge.

"People are asking me if I feel nervous, but I’m used to racing and I know what I need to do. Of course  things  are  different  in  F1  and  I’m  still  learning  about  the  car  and  how  to  work  with  the team. But I feel good and I can’t wait to go racing in Bahrain."

"It hasn’t been easy, especially because we had so much wet running during testing. You always want more time to test and more time in the car, but that’s how it is. The problem is that I haven’t had a lot of time to work on setting up the car in the dry. What I have found is that you need to be  really  precise  with  any  changes  you  make  to  the  set-up  because  even  a  little  change  can make a huge difference to the car’s behaviour."

"I  know  the  track  and  raced  on  the  old  layout  in  GP2,  but  obviously  the  new  section  is  a  new challenge for all the drivers. I don’t think about whether I enjoy tracks: all that matters to me is that   the   car   works   well   and   we   can   find   a   good   balance.   Bahrain   is  all  about  braking performance and, with the heavy fuel loads, this will be very challenging because it will be easy to lock a wheel and flat-spot your tyres early in the race.

"It hard to say because we still don’t know where we stand compared to the other teams and I haven’t driven the car with all the new updates. I need to be realistic in Bahrain because it’s my first  race  and  it  will  be  a  big  learning  experience.  So  my  first  aim  is  to  build  my  confidence through the weekend, to finish the race and try to be as close to my team-mate as possible.”