Renault Eyeing Further Progress

The Enstone-based team have kept up their efforts to improve their car, despite winning the first three races of the year, and chief test engineer Christian Silk is hopeful that major progress can be made this week ahead of the San Marino Grand Prix.

"The entire team is pushing very hard at the moment - there is a buzz around the factory and at the track because we know the car is competitive," he said. "Everybody is putting in that little bit extra - working through the night when they need to in order to get the job done.

"At the last test, we lost an entire day of set-up when we chose to bring the test forward, but the team responded brilliantly and on Tuesday morning, both cars were running. The team is getting the job done, and we can see that reflected in the results at the races.

"(This week) we will be testing tyres for Imola, looking at some set-up work over the kerbs and then conducting our usual longer-term R&D programmes. One product of doing so much reliability running so far in testing is that we are still finding set-up directions on the car that we have not yet explored.

"There were some promising items from the last test, and will work on these this week at Le Castellet. Set-up time is so limited at the races this season that the directions we explore now pay real dividends when the drivers arrive at the Grand Prix."

Although Renault's rivals believe that they can find the improvements needed to topple the French manufacturers, Silk believes the team still have plenty of room to improve their own car.

"From the first tests, we have putting new parts, and more performance, on the car - as well as implementing reliability fixes. We have an intensive development programme and things are progressing very smoothly: new aero parts have been working well on the car, and showing the expected benefits.

"Our other asset has been that we began running with two R25 chassis very quickly - at the second test of the R25 in fact. I think that has brought a measurable advantage in terms of problem solving, development and understanding the car."