Originally Posted by Prisoner Monkeys
Kovalainen's problem in 2007 was that Renault was structured around Fernando Alonso. Flavio Briatore only ran a second car because he had to; given the choice, he would only submit one entry. Under his rule, all resources were directed to Alonso from the outset, and in order to get a share of the pie, the second driver had to slog it out and start getting some results on his own. We saw it in particular with Nelson Piquet Jnr.; he was hopeless, but he might have been less hopeless if the team had actually supported him.
But then Briatore lost Alonso to McLaren, and he needed a new star driver. With Hamilton being scooped up by McLaren, Briatore was desperate to find someone who could carry the team. Kovalainen's results in the feeder series suggested that he would be strong enough, but Briatore threw him in the deep end, expecting him to pick up where Alonso left off. And when he didn't deliver, he got sacked.