Who is going to partner Senna at Campos?

By Emma York
November 15 2009

There have been a lot of rumors flying around in the past few weeks as to who will be partnering Bruno Senna at Campos Meta. There has been speculation that Spanish driver Pedro De La Rosa is the favorite for the seat but this rumor has since been cooled by the team.

“I would like to sign Pedro de la Rosa but he is Spanish and Spanish sponsors are in a bad way,” said team owner Adrian Campos, “there are other options – from Russia and Venezuela – but that all depends on the sponsors.”

Completely Campos Meta understands that the two countries Adrian Campos referred to relate to Pastor Maldonado who drove for ART Grand Prix and Vitaly Petrov who contested in this year’s GP2 series with the Campos team.

Here is a run down on the three candidates that have been linked with the second seat at Campos Meta

Pedro de la Rosa

Pedro de la Rosa would be the most experienced driver to be linked with the team. The Spaniard from Catalonia in Spain made his debut with Arrows in 1999, scoring just one world championship point. He then spent two years with Jaguar Racing where he scored three points before becoming the test driver at McLaren Mercedes. He was promoted to a full race driver at the 2005 Bahrain Grand Prix when Juan Pablo Montoya struggled with a shoulder injury. He was given the race seat officially a few months later with the news that Montoya was leaving Formula One to engage with new challenges in NASCAR. The Spanish driver has since been without a Formula One drive since 2007.

Pastor Maldonado

Pastor Maldonado is a promising young driver who has contested in the GP2 series over the course of the past few seasons. In 2004 he won the Italian Formula Renault series, taking 8 wins and 6 pole positions from 17 starts. This earned him a test with the Minardi Formula One team in the November of the same year. He joined GP2 in 2007 with the Trident Racing team and took his first race win just four races into the season at Monte Carlo. In 2009 he drove for the ART Grand Prix team, his team mate, Nico Hulkenberg, was crowned champion in this year. Maldonado finished sixth overall in the standings.

Vitaly Petrov

Vitaly Petrov is another promising young driver from Russia who has been linked with the Campos Meta seat. He has contested in GP2 over the past few seasons with the Campos team. He won a race in each of the 2007 and 2008 seasons and came third in the overall standings in the 2008 GP2 Asia Series. In 2009 he finished runner up to Nico Hulkenberg in the GP2 Series.