Briatore: Renault back at their best

The team, world champions in 2005 and 2006, had a torrid season in 2007, followed by a poor start to 2008 despite the return of Fernando Alonso.

However, the Spaniard won two races near the end of the year and scored more points than any of his rivals from the Belgian Grand Prix onwards.

Renault's form convinced Alonso to stay at the team for 2009, when Briatore reckons they will be a force to be reckoned with again.

"I really think so," Briatore told Autosprint magazine. "We have everything we need, we make developments, and each improvement we find ends up in the car immediately.

"We've gone back to the situation we were in before 2006. Ferrari, too, didn't win almost at all in 2005. It happens, in F1 the line between doing very well and very bad is very thin.

"But to do that we had to change a lot, hire new people, younger and hungrier of success. The secret is, you first need to understand what's wrong, and only then you start working.

"Otherwise you end up building a car without solid bases. Last year, this way, we lost five months before understanding where the problem was. Re-doing the wind tunnel by updating it completely required time. But we're ready now."

Briatore said he and Alonso were talking about a new deal all year, despite the announcement coming after the season was over.

"Fernando and I were talking every weekend, but we agreed not to say anything before the end of the year," he added. "With him in the team, we can experiment with the other driver, but Grosjean is too young and has made lots of mistakes in GP2 this year.

"In any case, if you want to beat someone really strong you need to grow your driver in-house. Like we did with Fernando and like McLaren has done with Hamilton."

Briatore also defended the FIA's decision to unfreeze engine development for next year, as he reckons it will make things more equal.

"I think it's fair that it is: you can't freeze performances for five years while leaving someone so far behind," he said. "When we learnt of the FIA's intentions, we removed 80-90 people from the engine factory at Viry. I don't think the others did the same thing.

"It was a mistake, and another one was made by the FIA by allowing a certain margin for intervention on the injectors. This goes completely against the spirit of the rule, which should have frozen performances for five years at the moment when performances were about the same for everyone."