Canadian Grand Prix: Renault hopes to beat Mercedes
As they returned from the Istanbul Park in Turkey, the Renault team did not feel very good about the race. Renault’s driver Robert Kubica earned eight points in the race but still felt disappointed at the end of the day as he spent the entire afternoon chasing the two Mercedes drivers who performed high speed manoeuvres with their R30’s. Moreover, Vitaly Petrov’s promising race was also spoiled by a punctured tyre. The only person still determined and confident among the Renaults was their chief race engineer, Alan Permane, who expressed a lot of hope from the driver. Alan claimed that the team will improve their qualifying performances within no time and he was looking forwards to the next event in Canada. The engineer has shown his confidence over the performance of the cars as well as the drivers. Alan Permane expects the Renault team to outperform Mercedes very soon.
After Kubica’s sixth place finish at the Turkish Grand Prix, Alan clearly showed his satisfaction with the performance. He stated that it was another great race and he was happy that Kubica was able to add more points to his total tally for the drivers’ championship. However, the chief engineer expressed his disappointment for not being able to get ahead of the Mercedes team despite the fact that Renaults’ cars seemed to be quicker. In most of the races until now, the first few laps of the race leading to the pit stops have play an important role in determining the outcome of the race, so they hoped that Kubica would move ahead of Rosberg in the pits. Their pit stop was timely and good enough in Turkey but somehow or the other, the Mercedes was a little quicker. As a result, the Mercedes team maintained their position in the Turkish Grand Prix who followed Rosberg in the convoy of cars for the entire afternoon.
The fact remains there that the Mercedes have been fighting against their toughest competitors on most occasions during the ongoing season. However, Renault’s performance in Turkey clearly depicts that their pace was at times even better than Mercedes. The lead earnt by Mercedes was largely due to the advantage of being ahead of Renault in qualifying period, quite similar to the race in Barcelona. Knowing the fundamental cause, it is up to the Renault team which has to make sure that they perform their best in the qualifying rounds so that they can beat Mercedes and achieve the full potential of their cars.
Furthermore, while commenting on the performance of Petrov, Alan Permane said that he surely did an excellent work and that it was really sorry to see him pick up a punctured tyre during his fight with Alonso. According to Renaults’ chief engineer, Petrov really deserved some good points after a wonderful display of skilful drive in Turkey. It would not be wrong to say that the last few races have not been very lucky for Petrov, having met a couple of accidents that have put him off the hook. Seeing him fight hard with the Ferraris and holding Fernando Alonso at bay for a long time during the race was superb and this must boost his confidence. It would not be wrong to say that this was his best race weekend of this season.
However, the engineer seemed happy with the developments of the new cars that the company is about to bring in. Alan was excited when he proclaimed that the best available technology has been used to make a new front wing which is surely going to benefit the cars and ultimately the performance of the Renault drivers. Alan who is taking care of the technical aspects for the Renault team was sure that the drivers would be hugely excited with the new designs. He said that a complete back-to-back assessment was made to compare with the older designs of the wings on Friday. He disclosed the team’s strategy of bringing some high end updates to the cars in every race in order to provide tougher competition to the rest of the lot. Alan added that technological advancements to the car were Renaults’ strength. If somebody was willing to beat them, the competition against Renault is just not won on the track. The brains behind Formula One racing are equally important than the drivers themselves. Renault seems to be having both the skills and the brains. Let’s see what the Canadian Grand Prix has in store for them.
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