After a performance dubbed as "completely unacceptable" by Jamie Franklin, Franklin have revealed that current Ocelot driver, Puccio Giodano will replace Jochem Van Snelheid ahead of the Chinese V-Prix. Whilst at times it was looking as though Franklin had the pace in the car to be challenging for the win and the podium spots, Jochem Van Snelheid was languishing at the bottom end of the points, eventually falling out of the top ten places, and unable to add to Franklin's points tally.
"I'm not going to say that we have the quickest car out there," Reported Franklin after the race. "However, the car is easily good enough to be in the points, and as Enrique has shown us, we are capable of wins and fighting for podiums. I'll admit, Jochem had a fairly decent showing in Malaysia, but based on his other performances, it does make me wonder whether we had the pace to actually win that race. Sixth when Enrique won the race, and then not even scoring is completely unacceptable for a team at our level, especially when it's so close up front," Franklin's decision to drop the rookie after just three races may seem as quite harsh to some, but certainly not out of character for the three time World Champions, and more than that it has potentially given us one of the most exciting driver line-ups in Formula Virtual history. Enrique Ruiz is a proven race winner, World Champion and widely considered in the top echelon of Formula Virtual, if not the best. Puccio Giodano, meanwhile, has always been somewhat of an untapped potential, showing glimmers of greatness, but never having the opportunity to fight at the front on a consistent basis. "We're very pleased to bring Puccio on board. We talked with a couple of teams about the possibility of switching drivers, but we couldn't pass up the opportunity to give him the drive I believe he deserves. Obviously moving into a different team is going to make things a little difficult for him, especially going up against Enrique as well, but we're going to be doing as much as we can to make the transition nice and smooth for him so that he can show us what he's made of," It's quite surprising to see a struggling team like Ocelot to give up one of their star drivers, but it does seem as though they may be benefiting from this as well. "I think this will please Puccio extremely as he will return to the front where he clearly belongs! It’s going to be great to see him up there, especially as it’ll give us something to cheer about this season. Now I know we might come across crazy about this deal, however behind the scenes this is extremely valuable. As for Jochem, I’m pleased to see him join the team, I can see how it might be a bit of a blow being dropped by Franklin. But he’s a smart kid, we adore him around here and we’d love to see him develop those skills, he was just a bit unfortunate in being promoted a little too soon. However we still believe in him, as we signed him in FV2 before our promotion," The three-way battle currently being fought at the top of field may have been very exciting for fans already, but I think things just got a whole lot more interesting.
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