Pedro de la Rosa chose to leave!!

[steve nielsen]

PdlR left the team !
By: Huw Alban
Date: 26/02/2001

When Arrows dropped the services of Pedro de la Rosa, the world of Formula 1 cried out in sympathy for the talented Spaniard. Arrows boss Tom Walkinshaw has taken some severe crtisism over the move, but according to Motoring News it may all have been of Pedro's own doing.


Early reports which emerged with the dropping story indicated that an issue with Pedro's sponsor Repsol had forced Arrows to look elsewhere. As a result Bernoldi was chosen over de la Rosa because of a higher sponsorship deal from his personal sponsor Red Bull.
Now stories in Motoring News have quoted Walkinshaw as saying that Pedro changed his mind about signing the new contract at the last minute, so they opted to go for Bernoldi who was putting in similar lap times.

Speaking to the motoring newspaper, Tom Walkinshaw has been quoted as saying, "If we had signed everything last September we would have the same two drivers. We offered Pedro a contract but at the last minute he changed his mind. At that time we put Bernoldi in the car and found that he was doing the same lap times. We were fairly convinced we'd have to change one of our drivers at the end of this season, so we thought we'd go for it. This is a building year for us and we thought if we were going to take a chance and bring someone on, it was better to do it this year than wait another 12 months. Bernoldi has been very quick so far and I think he'll surprise a lot of people."
______________________________

from arrows.rivals.net


even more amazing when you know that Huw Alban, who wrote this storie is not only a Arrows fan, but a fan of Pedro too.

[Valve Bounce]

So you went and told Alain about this, right!!

[Ralf's Girl]

There is something about that that doesn't seem right, to be honest. As a Pedro fan, I am obviously a little biased, but I know for a fact that de la Rosa had other offers from teams mid-season last year but a drive with Arrows had already been guaranteed and so he declined. So surely a contract would have been signed before February this year?

[AT-LAW]

As Ralfie´s girl pointed out, PDLR had several offers for this season, but chosed to be loyal with Arrows. Do you think that Prost would have signed Mazzacane if Pedro was available?
Only one month ago he was fired, just when all the official seats were asigned. Only reason for the dismissal: his lack of sponsorship while compared with Joss and Bernoldi. Same as happened with Mika Salo two years ago.
I assume that TW can not recognice plainly his rude behaviour regarding Pedro after two years of commitment, but no one has been really surprised at the paddock, not even the sponsors who are running out of a no-go team.

[Valve Bounce]

Don't worry so much - I have already put a hex on TWR: he will go bald and his engines will keep on blowing all year.