Symonds Predicts McLaren 'Cat & Mouse'
Renault's director of engineering Pat Symonds predicts a seesaw battle for this year's World Championship between his team and McLaren, stating Renault cannot afford to be over-cautious in the final stage of the season
Renault currently hold a slender lead of 12 points over McLaren in the Constructors' Championship, with a bigger lead - of 26 points - between Renault's Fernando Alonso and McLaren's Kimi Raikkonen in the Drivers' Championship.
But Symonds predicts the two teams will be exchanging the lead between them before the titles are settled at the end of the season, with six more rounds to go.
"I think we will see our two teams playing something of a cat and mouse game all the way through to the end of the season," Symonds told the Guardian. "As a function of the latest developments introduced by each team, and the type of circuit, I believe the edge will switch from one camp to the other."
Symonds further acknowledged that McLaren currently have the upper hand in terms of speed but said the key to Renault's chances is simply maintaining the existing lead, without being overly conservative.
"[McLaren] had an unlucky run early on but they picked up speed when the Championship returned to Europe," Symonds commented. "They are clearly very quick at the moment. The important thing for Renault is to maintain the advantage we have carved out so far.
"We need to finish the remaining races in a strong position if possible. At the same time, we mustn't allow chances to slip through our hands by being over-cautious.
"I think there's certainly a case for questioning our tyre choice in Hungary, for example. We never really got the car dialled in and I think that was partly a function of concentrating most of our practice running on the harder tyre."
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