By role
May 19 2003

Renault F1 has every reason to smile in the future. Not only they have one of the strongest driving pairs ,and a car that is only lacking power to be a contender. Besides all that, Renaults F1 tester, Frank Montagny, is showing lots of promise in the competititive Telefonica World Series (TWS). Many people believe this series to be a great place for young drivers to show their talents to make the jump to Formula 1.

As Formula 3000 has seen best days, the TWS is one of the most competitive series in the world. This year two of the drivers in the series, Justin Wilson and Ricardo Zonta, have landed a full time job in Formula 1. Wilson as regular driver for the Minardi Team and Zonta as test and reserve driver in Toyota.

The TWS this year has been improved with the presence of Former F1 divers Marc Gené and Enrique Bernoldi. Gené is lead tester and 3rd driver in BMW-Williams.

However, the two experienced drivers are having trouble to cope with the speed and natural talent of the young Renault F1 driver Frank Montagny. Montagny, who has found difficulty in finding times for testing due to Renault signing the Heathrow Agreement that limits their private testing, has been able to concentrate on his driving. So far he has shown great potential by winning 5 of the 6 races of the TWS. The other race was won by Marc Gené.

Montagny leads the series now by 50 points and is showing dominant in a very competitive series.

Montagny raced this weekend at home in Magny-Cours and he was able to win both races as well as set the two fastest laps of the weekend.

This shows that the program started by Renault in order to find raw talent and develop them is showing results as it was demonstrated with Fernando Alonso.