Renault unfazed by rivals' testing form

Giancarlo Fisichella and Heikki Kovalainen have not set times to match their Woking and Maranello rivals, but with Renault focusing more on reliability than performance the team are far from concerned.

"Well, McLaren and Ferrari have both confirmed that they're quick," said Renault's chief test engineer Christian Silk. "It's not really a big surprise.

"But we're a strong team too and these performances don't worry us...Our programme was probably quite different. The out-and-out lap times during the winter are almost impossible to analyse.

"One is quicker at Valencia; another is in front in Barcelona. That's not what you need to focus on at this stage."

Silk claimed that last week's poor weather at Valencia meant Renault spent little time on fine-tuning the set-up for out-and-out performance. Instead, they focused on getting valuable mileage on the new car.

"Our main aim was to test the reliability of the R27 and to rack up the miles," he explained. "We didn't run into any particular problems and we were able to do at least one race simulation per car. That's the positive side.

"And the negative? The weather: it was really dreadful, and none of the teams present managed to carry out its full programme. For example, it was just impossible to work on the set-ups; conditions were far too changeable."

When asked whether he knew what the R27 was capable of,  he said: "Yes, we have a pretty good idea. But we haven't yet looked at this part of our programme. It's always better to look for performance with a reliable car rather than trying to make a quick car reliable."