Euro GP crucial for Renault

"This weekend we start again," said the Italian, "it is a new challenge. We made some improvements to the car before Monaco, but it was difficult to judge them accurately last weekend because it is such a strange circuit. The Nurburgring will give us a much better idea of how much we have improved the car's competitiveness."

Trulli's team-mate Fernando Alonso feels car set-up is crucial at the German circuit. "Unlike Monaco, where the driver can make a big difference," he said "the Nurburgring is a track where you can only start to be really quick when you have set the car up and feel comfortable with it - there are not many places where the driver can add something extra."

Nevertheless the Spaniard thinks good results are on the cards. "We think the R24 will be competitive. I don't know if we can fight for a win again, it will be very tough. But we will be aiming for the podium, definitely, and the cars were very reliable again in Monaco.

Renault's chassis technical director Bob Bell echoes much of what Trulli says about the Nurburgring's usefulness as a benchmark and adds that weather conditions there could be in his team's favour.

"We have always said that the potential in the car was there to be unlocked," said Bell, "and Monaco may be an initial sign of that coming to fruition. The Nurburgring is a more standard circuit than Monaco, and will undoubtedly be a truer measure of the progress we have made. Conditions can be cooler than at other races and we saw in Melbourne that our car was strong in lower-than- normal temperatures. I think we are capable of racing very strongly at the Nurburgring."