Sleepless nights, hard work and honesty - Symonds

The ING Renault F1 Team’s Executive Director of Engineering, Pat Symonnds, discusses the team’s season so far. The World Champion Team is only fourth in the standings as they are trying to catch up with McLaren, Ferrari and BMW Sauber.

"It’s needed a lot of things: sleepless nights, unceasing work, a lot of honesty and logic. I say this because in addition to our task of overcoming all our problems, we’ve had to carry on the usual development aimed at improving performance on a race-by-race basis. The team has reacted very well to this extra burden of work and that should be underlined."

"I wouldn’t say it’s impossible, but it’ll be very difficult to catch them this season."

"I don’t know if we really had an initial problem with the Bridgestones. What’s sure is that when all the teams had to run these tyres for the first time, some were unable to achieve the same level of competitiveness as in the past, while others were, relatively speaking, quicker. I reckon we understand and know how the tyre should work. We still have to progress in the way in which we exploit it aerodynamically."

"There are big differences between the shape of the 2006 Michelins and the 2007 Bridgestones even if they can’t be seen with the naked eye. Modern F1 cars’ aerodynamics are very subtle and the tiniest thing can upset the cars’ overall efficiency. Over the previous years we did a lot of work on the behaviour of the tyres on the track: deformation of the sidewalls, high-speed behaviour etc. Today we have to build up this bank of data so it’s really a question of time."

"All the teams ran into graining problems today and that destroys the car’s performance. Usually, the more the rubber is laid down on the track the more this phenomenon disappears. But it looks like it may rain before tomorrow and that will make the track green again. If it were the case managing the softest rubber in the race would be a real challenge."