Following recent reports that Vitaly Petrov was the favourite to secure the second Caterham race seat, his manager now sounds far from optimistic.
German reports had suggested that the Russian had found new sponsors and was on the cusp of sealing the deal to secure his place at the team for 2013.
“So far, we haven’t managed to find new sponsors,” Petrov’s manager Oksana Kosachenko is quoted by R-Sport.
“Where do journalists get this information from? I’m a journalist myself and I know very well how this can just pop into someone’s head.”
She admitted that Petrov is not close to sealing the deal.
“At the moment there are a lot of unanswered questions,” said Kosachenko. “There are too many nuances that need to be sorted out.
“We’re at the waiting stage, which is linked to the team’s restructuring. We completely depend on them and can’t speed anything up.”
Caterham has already signed 2012 Marussia driver Charles Pic, and at the weekend technical boss Mike Gascoyne hinted that it is likely that Petrov’s 2012 teammate Heikki Kovalainen will be dropped.
Alongside Petrov, it was believed that sponsored drivers Bruno Senna and Giedo van der Garde were also in the running to be Frenchman Pic’s 2013 teammate. (GMM)
Subbed by AJN.