Briatore Sees Big Gains in Less Testing

Some Formula One teams were too arrogant to see that they could benefit from limited testing this season, Renault boss Flavio Briatore suggested today.

Renault are one of three teams to take up an offer of an extra two hours of testing on race weekend Fridays in exchange for agreeing not to test for more than 10 days during the remainder of the season.

Briatore said he believed his drivers could gain significantly from a deal, originally presented as a means of helping the smaller and poorer teams rather than wealthy manufacturers like Renault.

"I believe it is the best for me," he said at the track launch of the new Renault R23 in southern France. "The big teams never took Friday into consideration because the original idea was that it was for the small teams.

"Nobody was looking deeply into it to see what kind of an advantage you can have or not: it was only for the small teams - in Formula One the arrogance is very big."

Briatore said that, with Renault aiming to challenge for the title next year after finishing fourth overall in 2002, the agreement was unlikely to be for more than this year.

Renault, once a world-beating engine maker, have set a target of at least four podium finishes this year but still see a title challenge as a step too far. Briatore said the test decision had nothing to do with cost-cutting, since Renault have kept their test team in place with nobody losing their jobs.

"If we were fighting for the Championship, I would not have chosen the Friday option," he said. "But the fact that I had the chance to choose my tyres on Friday morning is a big advantage. I believe that two hours on Friday will make a lot of difference.

"Sometimes after testing for five days you come back to the factory and the car is one tenth of a second quicker. I believe a driver doing two hours more in Monte Carlo is worth four or five tenths of a second.

"Sometimes for one tenth we go completely mad and we never think about the driver because sometimes the engineers are talking about the car only. But in the end you have a driver in the car. If you are running two hours more you have a better understanding of the track and you have maybe two or three tenths in your foot."