Trulli confident of Spain.

By role
April 29 2003

Italian Renault F1 driver Jarno Trulli is quite confident on the chances his team has over the upcoming Spanish GP. He hopes his run of bad luck ends and that he can start to show his true potential soon.

In a recent interview to autosport.com Trulli declared that the Montmeló track should suit his car:

“For sure we've got a strong car. The aerodynamics are very good. The only problem there are very long straights there which affect the performance a lot, but in general I think we are confident to do well there.”

He understand that the fact that most of his rivals were testing there recently may affect his team’s competitiveness:

“It could be (a disadvantage), but we still have the testing Friday mornings. On a race weekend I think it's good to test in the morning, because basically we can set up the car as well as we want, try different set ups, try different tyres. We can develop the car on race weekends.” He added. “Fernando tested there with the new car, but I didn't. But the car was competitive.”

The Italian driver is satisfied with the progress that his team is making and is also surprise of the strong early form and reliability Renault has showed in the first four races:

“Yes, I'm very happy with the way the car and the team are performing. I've nothing to complain about. I'm really surprised at the way things have been working out. Maybe a little bit more luck will help me, but in general it's going well.”

Indeed, Trulli has been recognized as a fast and competitive driver that lacks some luck in certain moments of his career. This season he is driving strongly but a set of circumstances make him to be behind of his teammate on the standings.

On Malaysia he was hit at turn 3 of the first lap by an out-of-control Schumacher when he was running second behind his teammate who ended that race on third. He also had bad luck when the race at Brazil was stopped just on the lap after he had gone through pits, that made him finish 8th. On Imola he could only finish 13th after he was forced to use the T-car on both qualifying and the race. The T-car was set up for Fernando Alonso and Trulli complained lack of speed:

“We had a problem with the engine in the warm-up, just before qualifying. So I had to take the T-car, which was basically set up for Fernando. And for the first time this year, the set-ups were totally different. It was not only the springs and stuff, but the whole conception of the set-up, in terms of weight distribution and so on. But I think it must have had some other problem as well, because I was too slow. They are still trying to find out.”

Trulli is looking ahead for the Spanish GP looking forward to get into the points once again and to continue challenging his teammate in their quest to take Renault one step forward.