Gascoyne feels Renault will remain competitive!

By role
July 31 2003

Renault F1 Technical Director, Mike Gascoyne, believes his team can retain the competitiveness showed in the last British Grand Prix. Two weeks ago Jarno Trulli qualyfied 2nd and led during more than 14 laps to finish 6th due to some tyre problems.

His teammate, Fernando Alonso, was able to challenge during the race and had to retire due to an electric failure.

Gascoyne believes that the new modifications on the car will see Renault challenging for the top during the rest of the season:

"I believe we can be as competitive in all the remaining races as we were at Silverstone, and we will have a new engine specification for Hockenheim. Certainly, in very hot conditions the Michelin tyres have been extremely competitive and they are really doing a very good job. Once again, we need to be looking to take points from our direct rivals in Germany, and in order to do so we must ensure that both cars make it to the finish." He said.

Another benefit for the Renault F1 team is that thanks to the heathrow Agreement they will have 2 hours of extra testing for the German GP. With the current ban of testing until after the Hungarian GP Renault believes that can be an advantage. Pat Symonds explains:

"To say that there will be no testing is not actually completely accurate: in the Friday session at Hockenheim, we will be evaluating a different tyre construction that we may well use in Hungary. As the only top team able to do that during the summer break, it may prove to be to our advantage. Secondly, the tyre requirements of Budapest are very, very different to those of Hockenheim. As the demands of a circuit see us move up and down the tyre range, so does the relative competitiveness of the two manufacturers.
The results we will see at Hockenheim will not be a safe indication that the status quo is set until September." He said.