Renault ready to race head to head with Mercedes at Monza
Renault are hopeful that the next round of the season will see them a step ahead as their F-duct is expected to serve them pretty well in the next race.
Currently, the team stands at fifth place in the Constructors’ Championship with a total of one hundred and twenty three points, while Mercedes GP stands at fourth place, with thirteen races of the season already gone. The team is aiming to have the season closed at fourth place and with their recent F-Duct development they are expecting to see their hopes come true very soon.
Before heading for the Italian Grand Prix the Formula One official website talked to Renault’s technical director, James Allison asking him about his hopes and aspirations from the upcoming race.
Starting off with his interview, Allison told that the last race at Spa was a good comeback for the team as both its drivers were able to bag points and especially the day turned out to be brilliant as Robert Kubica ended at third place on the podium. He further told that such a returning from the summer break is very encouraging for the entire team and had further given them the impetus to strive for the rest of the races. He expressed delight for Vitaly Petrov too, who had a strong race at Spa and was able to finish the day at ninth place.
The team’s car, R30 outperformed at Spa with their F-duct, which proved very fruitful for the team and has turned out to be a significant upgrade for them.
The technical director of the team exclaimed that the system has paid them more than half a second at every lap of Spa.
While talking about Monza, which is one of the fastest tracks of the calendar, Allison told that the team had come up with a new bespoke package that had been specially designed only for this race and will not be used elsewhere.
Monza has many long straights encompassing very few corners; therefore the track demands smaller wings than the other tracks.
Moreover, like some of the other teams Renault is also considering if they will want to go into the race with their F-duct as it might become hard to handle the system with the low-downforce of Monza.
He was also asked for the future strategy of the team as the last few races are going to be very crucial for all the teams, for which he replied that though they are very much concerned for the rest of the races but like any other team they had also started working on their next season’s car.
However, he assured that the team has a few more upgrades in the pipeline for their current car although not many significant changes will be brought now.
While further talking about the car Allison added, “Generally speaking the cars that are good at one track tend to be good everywhere, regardless of the downforce levels.”
The way R30 has worked in Spa thus adds immensely to his confidence as he believes it to be equally competitive at all the remaining tracks of the calendar as well.
Currently they stand 23 points shy of Mercedes but still adamant to take at least four points more than the former at each of the remaining races in order to beat them.
At Spa they managed to reduce three points from their lead yet they are hopeful that a few more good finishes will let them achieve their target.
Well, there is only one more day to go, and the cars will assemble at Monza for another thrilling practice round followed by a lot of action and drama this weekend.
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