We made a mistake - Permane
The ING Renault Formula One Team’s chief engineer, Alan Permane, admits that Heikki Kovalainen’s one-stop strategy did not work out as he’d hoped. The Finnish rookie driver finished the Belgian GP in 8th position after a difficult race.
"It was difficult. With hindsight I think we made a mistake. We should have gone for a two-stop strategy like our direct rivals."
Why?"During free practice on Friday the performance fall-off with both the hard and soft compounds seemed reasonable even with a heavy fuel load. Unfortunately, that was not how they behaved today. Heikki had problems in his first run and we were slower than on Friday."
Despite everything he moved up a place and finished eighth..."Yes, that’s the positive aspect of the race. Heikki was fantastic. He made no mistakes and defended his position over the last nine laps against a car that was quicker than his."
What happened to Giancarlo?"He went off in corner no.5 and broke a pushrod. So it was all over for him. His brakes were cold and the car had a heavy fuel load on board."
What have you learned from the last two races?"We getting to understand the car better and better and we know that barring unforeseen circumstances, we’ll keep our place in the world championship. That makes our job a lot easier."
Source Renault
