Renault look to '08 car to improve R27

With the team having dropped back from the form that helped them to back-to-back world championships in 2005 and 2006, work has been progressing hard at Enstone on finding solutions to their problems.

And although the French squad are convinced they can sort out the issues with their R27, team boss Flavio Briatore is hoping that extra input can be provided by what the team learns from their 2008 work.

"We are already working on next year's car," Briatore was quoted as saying by Autosprint. "There's no point messing about, that's our objective. Whatever we discover on this project, we can eventually use it on the current car."

Briatore believes there is nothing unusual about Renault's troubles this year - especially with the team having been so strong for the past two seasons. He thinks they are simply going through part of the normal boom-and-bust cycle of F1.

"You see it so many times in F1," he said. "Look at Ferrari, Williams, McLaren. It's the normal cycle you have in this sport.

"It's so competitive that the smallest difference - 0.02 second here, 0.1 sec there - means you can finish a lap or two behind or three tenths slower. And that's the difference between fourth fastest and being ninth."

Briatore does believe, however, that his team's fortunes this year have suffered slightly because of the difficulties they faced last year in battling for the championship against the backdrop of grid penalties and the mass damper ban.

"The problem is that last year we had a handicapped championship," he said. "They put some heavy obstacles in our paths.

"If it wasn't that way, today we'd certainly be in a different situation, because we could start to develop the car the way McLaren and the others have been doing. Unfortunately when you must win with handicaps you always run a bit late."