Relieved? Not at all! - Chevrier
Renault F1 Team’s head of engine operations, Denis Chevrier, explains why Schumacher’s problems today will change nothing for his rivals. Fernando Alonso will start from 4th position on tomorrow's grid, team mate Fisichella from 6th.
"I think we can be pleased with our result. Looking at the practice times this morning, and the two first parts of qualifying, it was clear that we couldn’t fight with Ferrari today. We wanted to be on the second row, and we nearly are. For us, there was no sense in compromising our race pace for a good qualifying performance."
Were Schumacher’s problems a relief for the team?"Not at all! He remains a real threat, even though he is starting tenth. Of course, he will lose some time at the start of the first stint, but he is clearly much quicker than many of the cars starting ahead of him."
On the reliability front, any problems with the RS26?"No, everything went without a hitch. Both engines ran without incident, as the top speeds of our cars show. We are confident but, at the same time, we are taking nothing for granted…"
Source Renaultf1
