The technical view of the European Grand Prix!

By role
June 2 2004

Once again the Renault F1 team has sat down to analyse with detail what happened at the European Grand Prix. Trulli and Alonso finished 4th and 5th but the team left with the impression that a podium opportunity had been lost.

A combination of bad luck, raffick and maybe the wrong strategy made that neither of the two drivers could capitalise on the good position on the grid.

The Technical team explains what happened at the Nürburgring:

The Renault R24s of Jarno and Fernando lined up 3rd and 6th on the grid, but it was clear by the end of the first lap that it would be a tough race for the team. After the BAR of Sato collided with him, Jarno had slipped to seventh position, while Fernando was third but blocked behind Raikkonen’s slower McLaren – as comparison with Jarno’s times at the end of the second stint shows, the presence of the McLaren was costing the Renaults at least a second a lap. With only one lap more fuel than the Finn, Fernando paid a heavy price for the delay: Sato (stopping on lap 12) and Button got ahead during the first pit-stops. A steering problem on lap 14 allowed team-mate Trulli to pass, and Fernando had to cope with this added difficulty – caused by a foreign object which became jammed in the steering rack – until the end of the race. However, retirements from Coulthard and Raikkonen (McLaren) and Sato (BAR) saw the Renault drivers climb to 4th and 5th positions at the finish.

For the R24s, the longest stint of the race was 20 laps long, between laps 9/10 and 29/30/. During this period, when the cars were also stuck behind slower two-stopping cars at the beginning, Jarno’s average lap time was 1:32.383, compared to a fastest race lap of 1:31.131. A gap of 1.152 seconds demonstrates a good level of consistency. As for Fernando, his fastest race lap was 1:31.065, but the average on his longest stint was 1:32.496, a gap of 1.431 seconds. For the race winner, these figures were a fastest lap of 1:29.468, and average of 1:31.368 – a difference of 1.9 seconds that demonstrates how he was able to manage his pace after having built up a sufficiently large gap at the beginning of the race.


Comparison of a driver’s best three race sectors – his ‘ideal’ lap – and his fastest lap of the race are often a good indicator of how easy the car was to drive. If the figures are close, then the driver was able to get 100% out of it; if it is larger, then the handling perhaps worsened. For Michael Schumacher, his ideal lap of 1:29.202 was 0.266s faster than his best race time. The other drivers posted the following values:

Sato: 0.519s
Barrichello: 0.095s
Alonso: 0.575s
Trulli: 0.245s
Montoya: 0.471s

These numbers demonstrate both Ferraris were very comfortable, but they were not the only cars out there. Jarno’s R24 also seemed good to drive, with the difference being smaller than for Takuma Sato or Montoya. Fernando, though, clearly suffered from his steering problem that began on lap 14 – and the gap is over double that of his team-mate.

It is also interesting to note that the Renaults’ performances came, just as in Barcelona a few weeks ago, with relatively low maximum speeds. It is becoming something of a pattern for Renault, who have a specific way of setting up the car. At the end of the first sector, the R24s set the 11th and 4th best maximum speeds. They were 5th and 8th at the end of the second sector, and 8th and 12th at the last. The R24 was most competitive in this second part of the circuit, with Fernando and Jarno setting the 4th and 7th best times respectively in this portion of the circuit.

Finally, Fernando and Jarno claimed the 5th and 6th fastest race laps.