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Jarno Trulli: Time To Say Goodbye?
Debuting in 1997 and spanning 225 races thus-far, there are very few in the Formula One fraternity who believe Jarno Trulli has much more to provide the sport.
After fourteen years, six teams, eleven podium placings, four pole positions and only a single win to his name, Trulli's career appears to be in its twilight stages.
After five-full seasons with the under-competitive Toyota Racing team, and now being regularly-outperformed by former-Mclaren driver Heikki Kovalainen, a general consensus that Italy's Jarno Trulli should 'bow out' of the sport appears to have become accepted within the greater Formula One community.
Known largely for his mastery in qualifying, Trulli's race-pace has marred his reputation throughout his career and, in a team where consistent pace is required in order to show improvement, his major fault appears to give little reason for the Italian to be re-signed.
Although the early stages of his career showed mild-promise, a mixture of Flavio Briatore, Fernando Alonso and a struggle for speed in race conditions lead to the ultimate demise of his reputation.
Fired from the RenaultF1 squad before the end of his 2004 campaign after achieving his first (and only) win of his career earlier that season, Jarno moved to the Toyota Racing squad for the final two rounds of the year.
Although the year of 2005 was to be Toyota's statistically-best season in the series, Trulli was unable to beat teammate Ralf Schumacher in his first year for the team, and again failed to beat the German in the following season.
In a vehicle that rarely managed to finish in points-paying positions, and with Schumacher retiring at the end of 2007, the Italian was finally able to outscore Ralf over a season-length.
With Schumacher retired, German Timo Glock was announced as Trulli's teammate, in what would be Glock's first full season.
In the next two years, Trulli was able to outperform his German teammate and, although Timo showed flashes of promise - most notably at the 2008 Hungarian Grand Prix - Trulli was able to outscore stablemate Glock in two-consecutive seasons.
His reputation became somewhat-damaged after being largely-outperformed by Glock's replacement (and rookie), Kamui Kobayashi at the final two rounds of the season. An injury for the German at the Japanese Grand Prix of that year had forced him out of the cockpit for the remainder of 2009.
Going into 2010 with rookie squad Lotus Racing, Trulli has yet to achieve a clear advantage over teammate Heikki Kovalainen. Where Jarno's driving ability is regularly praised, qualifying sessions, he has been on equal terms with the Finn. As in previous years, his race pace has once-again struggled in comparison to his teammate.
Following a violent outburst in late-2009 against German Adrian Sutil, and an avoidable incident with Karun Chandhok of Hispanic Racing Team in Monaco earlier this year, many in the community are calling for the Italian to leave the series indefinitely.
Although there is a stream of new teams vying for entry into the 2011 season - a question regarding the Italian remains. Is Trulli important to the development of a small team? Can the Italian deliver more than another, cheaper driver would be able to? Whilst such questions cannot be decided only six rounds into a new season, whether Jarno is able to outperform teammate Kovalainen over the 19 races of 2010 will largely-decide the answers to these, and similar, questions.
TH
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Yeah, Jarno is in the 'F1 veteran' stage of his career but you never know: all cars in front of him may crash out in Canada and he may win again. We all wrote Rubens off after 2008 and yet he managed to win a few. F1 is full of surprises...