New Formula One boss John Booth has refused to rule out signing Nelson Piquet for next season.
Booth is taking his Manor team to Formula One next year, and the Yorkshire Post reports that his high profile deal with Sir Richard Branson - in which the team could be renamed Virgin F1 - will be announced a few days after November's Abu Dhabi finale.
Piquet was sacked by Renault for underperformance earlier this year, and he then triggered the crash-gate scandal by admitting to crashing deliberately in Singapore last September. The saga has resulted in Renault losing its chiefs Flavio Briatore and Pat Symonds, and top sponsors ING and Mutua Madrilena.
But despite Piquet admitting this week that he might need to revive his career in America, Booth said: "I've not spoken to him at the moment, but he's a smashing little driver.
"I've no personal problems with him, but it is unclear what his current position is with regards sponsorship."
Booth said talks have already taken place with the reigning A1GP champion Adam Carroll, as well as former F1 racers Christian Klien and Anthony Davidson.
"We have spoken to Christian but nothing more. I've had a chat with Anthony Davidson and he's a very quick driver. It's amazing the amount of quality drivers that are out there.”
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Villeneuve is hopeless. Everyone seem to live in his first 2 seasons in F1 and forget his poor performance from his 3rd seasons onwards even though he was given the #1 status in BAR. There are many good , experienced and will-be-available current drivers for next year, not to mention some up and coming young drivers.
I just hope that Manor will be at the rear of the grid all season with under performing Piquet in their team.
What the sign Villeneuve....!!!!! sign Piquet back he still have a lot in him
SIGN VILLENEUVE
What about Jacques Villeneuve? He'd be great too!
not a good start for manor they will be finished before they even start if they employ Lying Piquet this will not be liked in the pit lane......................expect big head piquet snr will pay manor for his sons drive
piquets too 'radioactive' in the eyes of the paddock and media, manor would get all the wrong kind of attention, maybe after a year he'll be ok, what about one of the Mansell boys?
dont even dare take piquet otherwise you will have the same fate like renault... piquet is a team dissolver as i would say...piquet just drive taxi cab in brazil. im sure you will not worry about flav and symonds telling you to crash the car....
Klien would be a very good option for Manor. He has good race experience and has also done many testing kilometres for BMW. Davidson couldn't beat Sato but he can't be worse than Piquet. Although if Piquet wants to join Manor, all he has to do is ask daddy to pay some cash and that his ride fixed. Haven't seen much of Adam Carroll but didn't he win a lot of races in A1?
I'd expect Adam Caroll and Anthony Davidson to be up there next year. Davidson's never had a real ride with F1 besides the time he had with Super Aguri, which was short lived because the team had to fold.
I dont think Anthony Davidson has ever shown true pace, has he ? i may be mistaken, but i dont think ive ever seen him with good pace.
The beggining of silly season starts again. I wouldnt be surprised to hear a few more of thos piquet-'admissions' when one or 2 'high-profile' drivers are without a race next year. We all know cheating goes on in F1 - always has - always will, but its about keping in front of the other R&D of other teams, now.
Anthony Davidson. My choice of those mentioned
"..He's a smashing little driver." HAHAHAHAHAHA
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