F1: Renault admit they are lowly midfield runners

[Rory Phoulorie]

Saturday 7th April 2007

World Champions Renault have admitted that they are not only midfield runners now but they aren't even front-running midfield runners.

The team appears to be suffering a dramatic fall from grace, with neither of their drivers, Heikki Kovalainen nor Giancarlo Fisichella, able to qualify in the top ten for the Malaysian GP. Worse, the evenly-matched pace of the two drivers - the Finn only narrowly out-paced the Italian - indicated that, unlike in Melbourne, the fault was with the car rather than the occupants of the cockpits.

"From the team's point of view, the first thing we look for is equality of performance between the two drivers and, unlike in Melbourne, we clearly have that today. The midfield battle is exceptionally close, but we are not at the front of that group, and that makes life much more difficult," acknowledged Denis Chevrier, the team's Head of Engine Track Operations.

Likewise, Pat Symonds, the Executive Director of Engineering, could not find fault with his drivers' efforts and was forced to admit that the team had been overtaken by their rivals.

"We felt we had made progress before this race but of course, the notion of competitiveness is always relative - and it is now clear that some of our rivals have made more progress on this circuit. Having said that, it is equally true to say that we didn't maximise our chances today," he commented.

"Clearly the overall level of performance is disappointing, but we now have to knuckle down and make the most of the situation we find ourselves in. We will look to take full advantage of our freedom to choose the fuel load for both cars, and race hard through the midfield pack tomorrow."

http://www.planet-f1.com/story/0,18954,3213_2043810,00.html