» Petrov management denies recent speculation

Has Vitaly Petrov paid up?

Manuscript Sport, the management company representing Russian F1 ~~pay driver~~ debutant Vitaly Petrov, has confirmed that he will contest all rounds of this year’s World Championship. This follows reports which claimed that the Renault driver’s seat could be in jeopardy due to apparent non-payment of the sponsorship ~~bribes~~ funds that formed the basis of his signing.

A recent interview between Vitaly’s father and SovSport.Ru appeared to raise doubts as to the security of his drive when the former seemingly revealed that his seat depended on currently outstanding payments.

However, Manuscript has confirmed that the situation had been a "misunderstanding".

Perhaps the misunderstanding was them not realising that the drive was conditional upon the payment of sponsorship tp begin with!

"Following recent speculation in F1-related media about the situation between the Renault F1 Team and Vitaly Petrov, the Driver’s Management denies all rumours, which were due to a misunderstanding in an interview with the driver’s father.
We would like to inform you that the Renault F1 Team and Vitaly Petrov’s Management have reached full agreement and have signed a binding contract for 2010. Vitaly will drive for the Team in all 19 Grands Prix counting for this year’s FIA Formula One World Championship.

At present, both team and driver are preparing for the next official test session, which is due to take place [at] the Jerez circuit. No further comment will be made."

Well, you haven’t exactly confirmed or denied the status of the first payment! We’re withholding our judgement on this one…