The changing fortunes of Jerome D'Ambrosio

If you were to trace Jerome D'Ambrosio's changing fortunes during the course of 2010, you'd end up with something looking like a gradient chart from one of the mountain stages of the Tour de France.

If you haven't been paying attention, it goes something like this. 1) Sign up for third season of GP2 with DAMS, get Renault F1 reserve driver gig. 2) Start season badly. 3) Win sprint race in Monaco. 4) Struggle in races that follow. 5) Get replaced by Romain Grosjean in Germany and be told that you have two more rounds to prove yourself. 6) Come back and be extremely quick. 7) Land a Friday driver slot with Virgin for four races, starting with Singapore this weekend. Even by racing's admittedly odd standards, D'Ambrosio's turnaround has been dramatic.

No-one who paid attention to the Belgian in the past will begrudge him the opportunity. Solidly quick in the car; approachable and intelligent out of it, he was nonetheless dogged by a sense that he should have been on the GP2 podium more regularly than seemed to be the case. The problem was that it was not always clear whether the problem lay with the team or the driver.