Finishing third at Australian Grand Prix, Russian racer Vitaly Petrov received an exclusive pen from the world-famous Italian manufacturer of writing instruments, Montegrappa, as a gift. Vitaly Petrov, a native of the city of Vyborg, who plays for the Lotus Renault team, became the first Russian race car driver to enter the Formula 1 prize podium. On this occasion, the “ambassador” of the Montegrappa brand, the world famous racing driver Jean Alesi personally presented Vitaly with the Montegrappa Yuri Gagarin pen with the number “3” happy for Vitaly.
“I am grateful to Montegrappa for this unexpected and special gift for me,” said Vitaly Petrov. “In Russia they call me the Vyborg Rocket, and I am glad that now I am the owner of a pen with a symbolic third number dedicated to my third place at a car race in Melbourne.” Timed to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the first space flight, the Montegrappa collection of pens “1961 - 2011. Yuri Gagarin - The First Man in Space” was released in a limited edition: 1961 fountain pen and 1961 pure silver ballpoint pen, and only 50 fountain pens and “rollerballs” "made of 18ct gold.
An image of Yuri Gagarin, surrounded by interplanetary motifs and the Vostok-1 spacecraft, is engraved on the pen’s body, and on the cap is the emblem of the USSR and the image of the monument to Yuri Gagarin, discovered in 1980 on Gagarin Square in Moscow.
