Tuesday 19 May 2009

Renault wants repeat of 2008 charge

Renault technical director Bob Bell thinks his team is on course for another late season charge like the one that saw Fernando Alonso out-score all the title contenders in the final third of 2008.Like last year, Renault has had a difficult start to its season, but is showing strong signs of progress as its developments take effect.
Alonso has previously said that he feels things are moving forward even faster than last season, and Bell agrees that Renault is on the up.
"You can only do your utmost to develop faster than the competition and I think as a team we are good at doing that, as we demonstrated in the second half of last year," he said."We're in a similar position this year, but it's even more challenging now with limited wind tunnel and CFD time available and no in-season testing.
"But it's the same for everybody and all we can do is continue working hard, keep our motivation high, and keep pushing developments through and onto the car as fast as we can."
He said Alonso's fifth place in Spain - behind only the Brawns and the Red Bulls - proved Renault was gaining ground."We knew we weren't going to jump to the front of the pack, but we were determined to close the gap to the leading teams, and I think that's what we've done," Bell continued."Considering where we were at the start of the season, it was a nice reward for all the hard work and effort that has gone in behind the scenes."
Bell expects a further step forward in Monaco this weekend."It won't be as big a step as we made in Barcelona, but we are still hopeful of adding some performance to the car to keep closing the gap to the leaders," he said.

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