French GP 2006: Monday Morning Debrief
Ferrari ahead of Renault wasn't quite what the script had
called for at the centenary Grand Prix, but the Renault F1
Team is relishing the challenge of coming back even stronger
in Hockenheim. Head of Trackside Engine Operations Denis Chevrier
explains:
Denis, arriving at the team's home race, 100 years after
Renault won the first ever French Grand Prix, it seemed like
the script had been written for a Renault win. How much of
a disappointment was second place?
We go to every race looking to win, so of course it's disappointing
when you cannot. We felt we were very strongly placed after
qualifying and that we would be able to make our consistency
count in race conditions. But we are not over-dramatising
things either: you have to finish second if you cannot win,
and there is never a colossal difference between the two in
terms of points. Strategically, it was an important second
place.
A points-system that rewards consistency must be a real help…
I think our view of the points system has turned around a
little compared to earlier in the season! Back then, we were
winning a lot of races but only edging away from Ferrari and
Schumacher in the championships, and it was quite frustrating.
But this weekend, with a performance deficit, it was certainly
something that we benefited from, and we still have a very
good gap in both championships.
Ferrari have now won two races in a row – is
this a definitive shift in the balance of power during this
mid-season period?
It is a close fight between the two teams, as it has been
all year and will continue to be. There is no reason to panic
– neither in terms of the championship situation, nor
the technical status quo between the teams. Ferrari happen
to have won two races in a row – but we dominated four
in a row before that. There is no reason to think that the
pendulum will not swing back in our favour in the coming weeks.
What is the atmosphere like in the team at the moment?
Excellent, as always. When you win, you cannot rest on your
laurels celebrating it – it is quickly gone. The same
is true when you lose, and our priority is to get on with
our jobs and look to the next challenge. There is only one
thing we can do: that's studying how we can make our car go
even faster.
Will there be a secret to regaining the upper hand?
The next race we win will be down to only one thing: applying
ourselves to the job in hand, which means gaining tenths of
a second here, tenths there, and getting those improvements
on the car as quickly as possible. Win or lose, it changes
nothing in our approach: we have to carry on improving in
order to take the fight to our rivals.
Finally, the team has already said that the RS26-C
will benefit from even more performance in Hockenheim. What's
the plan?
The C specification engine was introduced as a new family
of engines, which gave us a baseline for then developing the
V8 even further. Fernando will have a one-race old unit in
Hockenheim, Giancarlo a brand new one, but both drivers will
benefit from performance upgrades for the next race. The engine
is intrinsically capable of achieving greater performance,
and by changing both the tuning and the way we run the engine,
we will be able to unlock more of it from the next race onwards.
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