Renault rules out F-duct system

Renault has ruled out copying the McLaren F-duct system this season because it doesn't want to get distracted from its planned development programme

The French car manufacturer has had a stronger than expected start to the 2010 season, with Robert Kubica's promising pace from Bahrain followed by him topping the timesheets in practice in Australia.

And although the outfit is promising an aggressive development programme with its R30, team principal Eric Boullier has said the team will not waste resources trying to copy the F-duct system for added straight-line speed.

Speaking to AUTOSPORT, Boullier said: "We don't want to be disturbed by copying something that we don't think is so dramatically faster. We will keep our strategy and keep our head down."

Boullier played down the significance of Kubica's practice topping performance from Friday, but said the team was confident of a strong showing in Melbourne.

"I am more encouraged than happy," he said. "It is better to be first than last, but being first in free practice is not very exciting.

"We knew already coming from Bahrain that our car should be good here. We didn't know and couldn't say by how much because we brought here some new aero development and mechanical buts, but knew we should be in better shape than Bahrain.

"Every race we will have the same amount of new development parts, which is quite huge compared to normal."