Renault thrilled with podium!

By role
August 3 2003

The Renault F1 team were thrilled today after scoring a podium finish. Jarno Trulli fought a hard race to keep a well deserved 3rd place. His teammate, Fernando Alonso, finished 4th jst 0.2 seconds behind Trulli.

The Italian was exhausted at the end after a tough fight:

"It is a wonderful feeling to score my first podium for Renault. I took advantage of the accident at the first corner and, during the first two stints, the car was very good: Montoya was faster than me, but I was controlling the people behind. However, fifteen laps from the end, I started suffering from blistering on the rear tyres. When the cars behind caught me, I lost two places, but Michael’s problem was a stroke of luck which brought me a podium finish. We had a very good weekend, we were competitive right from the first session, and this is a good
reward." The happy Italian said.

Alonso was not as happy though:

"The result is OK, and it feels good to be scoring points again. We have been very competitive since Silverstone, and this is a good result for the team in terms of the championship. From my point of view, I pushed during the whole race: it was tough, and my mistake didn't help matters, but finishing fourth is not too bad
after starting from eighth." Said the Spaniard.

Renault F1 boss Flavio Briatore was also quite sattisfied with the results:

"This is good for the whole team, and particularly for Jarno, his engineers and his mechanics, who have scored their first podium for Renault. It was a hard race, especially in these hot conditions, but we chose the right strategy. We will continue working throughout the next three weeks in order to stay competitive in Budapest.” Said Briatore.

Pat Symonds was happy to achieve the 4th podium this season:

"We always knew this would be a difficult race, because of the very high temperatures which have a detrimental effect both on the tyres and the engines. The high quality of both of these enabled a double points finish for the first time
since Monaco, and our fourth podium of the season. The team and its partners worked well to earn this result in the face of adverse conditions.”