Symonds: V8 Engines May Help Renault

Renault's director of engineering Pat Symonds believes that the switch to V8 engines next season could be a key factor in helping his team's bid to land back-to-back titles

The French car manufacturer clinched the Championship double at the Chinese Grand Prix and, although rivals McLaren are favourites for next year's title after the speed shown by their MP4-20 for much of this season, Symonds thinks that new regulations will level the playing field.

And Symonds thinks that could actually give Renault the edge going into the new season because their V10 engine was not the best out there - meaning any disadvantage they had in that area this year will be wiped away for 2006.

"Our team has an awful lot of depth and a lot of the philosophy will carry on," he said. "I think we are very good at managing change as a team, so the V8 doesn't frighten us.

"In fact, I would almost say the opposite because, in fact, our engine architecture is a little bit old fashioned. The engine is quite heavy, it is a super engine, it has just won the world championship, but the V8 might level the playing field a little bit more."

Symonds is not taking anything for granted about next season, however - and is well aware that Renault's rivals will be desperate to stop them repeating their success in 2006.

"The thing people always seem to fail to realise with dominance, competitiveness and so on, is that it is a relative thing," he added.

"One of the reasons, and not taking anything from Ferrari because they have done a fantastic job, but one of the reasons they have been dominant is because the rest of us had not done a good job.

"So you can work as hard as you like, you can apply everything to try to make your product the best product, but you don't know what the other guys are doing.

"If they are having a bad year it's easy, if they are not, it is difficult. I don't think it is right to predict whether you can have a period of dominance but what I think is we have got a damned good team, I really do, both in England and in France.

"We have a hell of a depth of really clever people and people who really enjoy working there, and that's a damned good start, isn't it."