Renault still lack pace to BMW

During a dramatic race run in changeable conditions, the team failed to take advantage of the opportunity to out-score championship rivals BMW, taking home just one point with Heikki Kovalainen’s eight-place finish. The team will now look to regroup at this week’s three-day test in Jerez, pursuing its development programme with further evaluations of new aerodynamic components as it looks to close the gap to the teams in front.

There is not too much to say about this afternoon, to be honest. We took some gambles, especially with the wet tyres during my final stop, and they didn’t pay off. I had to look after my wet tyres on a dry track until the rain came, and it just took too much out of them to be an advantage. But from the position we were in, with one stop still to make, it was a gamble worth taking. This hasn’t been a good day for the team, but we managed to score one point at least. There is an important test coming up this week, the last before the summer break, and it will be important to get some good answers there, to help us find the right track again in Hungary and Turkey.

We had the opportunity to do well today, but we didn’t take advantage of it. I lost positions with an extra lap on slicks at the beginning, and then queuing in the pits behind Heikki too. After that, we had to run with some heavy fuel loads, and although the car balance was OK, the performance wasn’t really there. It has been a tough weekend since Friday morning, and we will be working hard before Hungary to make sure we are in a better position when practice begins in Budapest.

This was a bad race for the team. We arrived here optimistic that our new developments would help us gain in performance, but we failed to take advantage of the changing conditions during the race, and lost more ground to our rivals. Our job now is to analyse everything back at the factory, understand our mistakes and start moving forward again.

Changeable conditions require teams to react quickly and effectively to the challenges they present. Clearly, we failed to do so this afternoon, and while both drivers performed strongly, we didn’t give them the opportunity to shine. This has been a difficult weekend for the whole team, and we appear to have lost some ground to the midfield group that was chasing us in recent races. This week’s test at Jerez will be an important opportunity to understand how and why that happened, with a view to regaining our advantage, beginning with the next race.