Luca di Grassi insists the loss of his Virgin race seat was a simple case of not being able to afford it.<\/p>\n
The 26-year-old Brazilian made his debut with the new British team last year, but for 2011 has been replaced by the Belgian Jerome d’Ambrosio.<\/p>\n
“I had a contract with Virgin but I needed a new sponsorship,” he told the Arena SporTV programme.<\/p>\n
“I could not get one, and the Belgian did.\u00a0 Now I’m in a phase of restructuring to get back in (F1) next season,” added di Grassi.<\/p>\n
Globo Esporte reports that one possible appointment this year for the Brazilian, whose reputation is as a good test driver, is in the area of tyre development with Pirelli.<\/p>\n
When asked about the 2011 world championship in general, di Grassi said: “I have spoken with friends who are still there.<\/p>\n
“Even when you’re driving, it’s hard to know what to think based upon the tests.\u00a0 But I think Red Bull are still very strong as are Ferrari.<\/p>\n
“McLaren are either hiding something or will not be so good for the start of the season,” he added.<\/p>\n
Luca di Grassi insists the loss of his Virgin race seat was a simple case of not being able to afford it. The 26-year-old Brazilian made his debut with the new British team last year, but for 2011 has been replaced by the Belgian Jerome d’Ambrosio. “I had a contract with Virgin but I needed …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[3],"tags":[5262,5340,2755,119],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11217"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11217"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11217\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11218,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11217\/revisions\/11218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n\u00a9 RIF | GMM<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"