Alonso: This weekend won't be easy!

By role
April 18 2003

Renault F1 came down from the cloud they were after the first 3 races when they couldn't qualify better than 13th and 16th. Fernando Alonso set the best time but he is expecting a tough weekend for the team.

Talking on the team's official web site Alonso declared: "As we expected, it is going to be a hard week-end for us. We are struggling with our tyres on this special track. This said, we still have a full-days work in front of us, and I am optimistic we can reasonably improve our final position on the grid in tomorrow's qualifying."

His teammate Trulli was not happy with the balance of the car and is expecting that the changes will improve the handling: "This morning we lost time during the test and free sessions, with few problems on the car and therefore this afternoon, I felt the car was not well balanced , which reflected in my poor lap time. We will have to set to work hard on the car now, but am confident I can improve my position tomorrow."

Besides Alonso pesimism the team will fight hard to improve the car before tomorrow's key qualifying session. Denis Chevrier, Engine Operations Manager believe the gremlins on the test earlier today may have hampered the possibilities of the team: "This morning's problems prevented us from developing our full programme and it is difficult to say where we really are and how much we can improve.", he says, "Today the gap to the others is significant. We have to understand why and to react accordingly."