Symonds surprised by Renault domination

"I'm surprised by the margin we had today," said Symonds. "It's more than I realised and I do feel comfortable with it. But we're absolutely not complacent. We learned that last year - it's tough.

"We were pretty confident before the race, but I did think we'd have a fight on our hands. I don't know where it went to.

"And when you're leading a race, you don't want to see safety cars - but they helped us out. We got Jenson [Button] at the first one and then Midland helped us out in the others."

As the teams return to Europe, with two weeks of testing scheduled ahead of the San Marino Grand Prix in three weeks time, Symonds is sure the title battle will intensify.

"It's fantastic getting to this point, like last year. Imola? I don't want to take anything for granted. Our weekend has surprised me - we were quicker in the race than I thought. But Imola is a different circuit," he said.

"It's coincidental, but the first three races do have something in common and the circuit characteristics are quite similar.

"Imola is different, and it was a tough race for us last year. I've got a feeling it will be a tough race again. But we're still confident.

"Traditionally, Imola is a place where people start to bring their developments," Symonds added. "It was very difficult for Michelin last year but they've worked very hard on that problem.

"We haven't been able to prove whether we've fixed it or not. We tried testing at Imola in the winter but it was a slightly forlorn hope. So I don't know.

"But Imola is a little bit of a special place. As we go into the other races, we do get into more of a rhythm about how you go racing and how you develop the car. Everyone tends to lump these three flyaways together and says let's do the best with what we've got.

"Of course we bring developments to these races, but you don't have the intensity that you have later on. There is a different picture as you go on."

Symonds further reckons that Renault's superiority so far this season is not reflective of the competitive 2006 field, and he expects teams like McLaren to bounce back in Europe.

"There are similarities to last year. At this stage, three races in, I don't think we'd seen the true picture - McLaren had had a nightmare start to the season - and I'm not convinced we've seen the true picture yet.

"Certain things are emerging that I hadn't predicted. Ferrari were stronger than they are. But if we believe what we read, they have an engine problem and once they get round that, they'll be back on the pace.

"And that applied to McLaren over the winter - so it may be true again. McLaren weren't competitive today as I thought.

"But the four teams who I've been saying are in the hunt - us, Ferrari, Honda and McLaren - were all on different tyres this weekend. Maybe that played a key part in it."