Renault F1 may have had a strong race at the Hungaroring but the Valencia circuit was a bad reality check. Fernando Alonso retired while Nelson Piquet only came in at eleventh. Rivals Toyota got six valuable points at the event and Renault are now 10 points behind the Japanese team in the fight for fourth place. Pat Symonds, Renault’s director of Engineering, believes that the team will hold strong and come back to get to fourth place in the title fight.
*Question:’ Valencia was tough on the team as a whole. What did the performance look like from where you are at?Pat Symonds:We were certainly left disappointed and the source of our problems seemed to be qualifying, where we underperformed. If Fernando had managed a couple of clean laps in Q2, I think he would have been comfortably through to the final part of qualifying. As it was, the rest of the weekend was a direct result of our poor qualifying because starting in the midfield bunch always puts you at risk, just as Fernando found out. Nelson suffered similar trouble on the opening lap as he was held up with Fernando’s accident and then tangled with Coulthard.Question:Fernando’s race in Valencia was brief. Will he be able to bounce back in Spa?*Pat Symonds:’ Yes, absolutely. But it’s not really a question of bouncing back because we know that we have a very definite level of performance that is strong enough to allow us to run in the top ten. Spa is a circuit that both the drivers particularly like and where the car will be good so I’m sure we will be back in our usual position.
*Question:’ Nelson has had a good time at Spa. It is one of his favourite circuits and he even won here while in GP2. Is that going to make a difference?Pat Symonds:Although drivers can have favourite tracks, it shouldn’t really affect their ability to perform and we’ve already seen that Nelson can be strong at any type of track. However, racing at a track you enjoy is the sort of thing that helps you raise your game a little bit. Nelson will be strong and he’s looking forward to it.Question:Toyota are picking up the pace in the race for fourth place. Does Renault have the fire power to overcome the 10-point deficit and beat them to it?*Pat Symonds:’ It’s a tough battle and we know it’s going to be hard work. With six races to go they’ve got ten points advantage on us, which is a reasonable lead, especially when you consider that we are fighting for the smaller points paying positions. We never underestimate anyone and we need to fight hard with them, but I do believe that we have what it takes, as a team, to beat them. We know there’s a lot to do and, of course, a freak result can make a big difference, but if all things are equal and we battle until the end of the season, I think it’s an achievable target.
*Question:’ I dont think that any season has been this competitive in the mid-table. Things are really tight, are they not?Pat Symonds:I think it has always been tight. The nature of Formula One and the scoring system means that the midfield teams are left to fight over a small number of points, which generates a closely fought championship. So it’s not something new and with the three dominant teams establishing themselves early in the season, it means that the rest of the teams are left to fight for fourth position downwards.Question:What are your views on the Spa circuit from a Technical point of view?Pat Symonds:It’s such a contrast with where we’ve just been. Valencia was a circuit where we were quite restricted with what we could do to gain performance and I don’t think the drivers found it particularly challenging, except maybe the final sector. Spa is the complete opposite: it’s very much a drivers’ circuit and requires a car that has good stability through the quick corners. We’ll be running with medium downforce, but overall you need good aerodynamic efficiency because you have to find the right trade off between straight-line speed and downforce through the quick corners. So the more aerodynamically efficient your car is, the more it pays you back.Question:We are entering the final leg of the season. Just 6 races left, what is the atmosphere like in the team?*Pat Symonds:’ The whole team is hungry for fourth place in the championship. We recognise that our start to the season had far too much hangover from last year, but I think we recovered well from that and have shown that we can out-develop most of our rivals. We desperately want that fourth place and we are going to be fighting hard to try and get it.
