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Renault team boss Eric Boullier says the team is “totally committed” to helping Vitaly Petrov deliver on his potential in the second half of the season, hinting that a run of regular points finishes is the key to him retaining his seat for 2011.

Russian rookie Petrov, who only drove a Formula 1 car for the first time in February, has shown flashes of impressive speed in the first half of the season but generally failed to convert that into hard results – the 25-year-old’s sole points finish coming in China in April.

Speculation has begun to surface that other higher-profile drivers could be in contention for the seat alongside Robert Kubica for next year, with former world champion turned rally driver Kimi Raikkonen linked with the team over the Silverstone weekend.

Boullier was asked to discuss what the future held for Petrov in Renault’s latest podcast and the Frenchman said it was the rookie’s own performances that would determine how his career progressed from here.

“His future is actually in his hands,” Boullier said.

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“We have not been disappointed by him. He clearly is the best rookie in the paddock.

“He did very good performance; he did some very amazing jobs sometimes.

“Today he is clearly lacking some consistency to get the points he deserves and we definitely need to have both cars scoring points.

“So that’s obviously creating some rumours around him and his race seat but we are totally committed to him.

“We are happy to have him on board and we will do everything we can to help him to get the final step where we want him to be.”

Petrov’s future has come under focus since Kubica committed to a two-year contract extension at the team last week.

Boullier admits the Pole’s new deal was a big boost for the entire squad as it showed that the highly-regarded ace had faith in its ability to reach the top of the sport again.

“That was very good news,” he said of Kubica’s deal.

“First of all I’m happy for the team. It’s a great mark of confidence towards the team that Robert has signed a two-year deal with us.

“With all respect for the other teams, he is a very highly ranked driver and a lot of prestigious names in the paddock were chasing him – or was supposed to chase him.

“It’s good for our project to have Robert committing for two years because it means also that we get some credibility in his eyes and it means our team has done a good job, but it’s supposed to be a better job for the future.

“That just reassured everybody and it was clearly very welcome in the team and I was happy to tell our boys that he was committed for another two years.”ITV-F1