2007 French Grand Prix,
The ING Renault F1 Team endured a frustrating afternoon at
Magny-Cours during the 2007 French Grand Prix.
The team was unable to deliver on the promise of its best
qualifying result of the season yesterday afternoon, with
drivers Giancarlo Fisichella and Heikki Kovalainen finishing
6th and 15th respectively. Heikki's afternoon ended almost
as soon as it had begun: as the Finn was turning through the
hairpin at turn 5, his car was hit by Jarno Trulli who had
out-braked himself on the entry to the corner. Heikki's right-rear
tyre was punctured and his car slightly damaged. He pitted
immediately, but was almost a lap down as he rejoined. The
subsequent blue flags disrupted his race but when running
in clean air, his times were competitive.
As for Giancarlo Fisichella, he ran a competitive first stint
in his starting slot of fifth position, and at the first of
his two stops, the team took a strategic gamble to extend
the length of his second stint – hoping to gain position
around the second stop, when other competitors put on the
softer compound Bridgestone Potenza tyres, which were suffering
from a performance deficit today owing to graining in the
early laps. However, the resulting high fuel load provoked
severe understeer throughout this stint. Giancarlo lost time
relative to Heidfeld and although he almost beat him out of
the pits even so, it was not enough. He subsequently defended
his position robustly against Fernando Alonso's McLaren to
retain sixth place. The result leaves the team 20 points behind
championship rivals BMW in the Constructors' Championship.
Giancarlo Fisichella, 6th position
I did the best possible today. The pace was very close to
BMW, and even closer to the other teams in front too, as I
was able to keep Fernando behind me on equal fuel loads at
the end of the race. So for sure, we are getting better and
better, and moving forward all the time. Ultimately though,
I lost one position this afternoon, and that's not good –
especially when it's a BMW that goes in front. The main problem
was the understeer with the high fuel load in the second stint,
which cost me too much time. I had a small battle with Fernando
early in the race, but he was much lighter and got past. We
were running together again at the end, though, and it was
much closer. The soft tyres grained a little bit in the first
few laps of the final stint, and he was much faster than me
through turn three, so we had a good battle for a few laps.
Then the tyre situation improved, and I was able to build
a little gap. That was quite satisfying and it shows the car
is getting better. Now, we need to try and close the points
difference with BMW next weekend in Silverstone.
Heikki Kovalainen, 15th position
Well, my race was over on the first lap really and it's a
big missed opportunity for me. I was turning through turn
5 when Jarno hit me, spun me round and punctured the right-rear
tyre. I had to pit, lost nearly a lap and then it felt like
I was slowing down for blue flags almost every lap! The times
seemed quite competitive when I was in clean air, but it was
hard to get into a rhythm to be honest. I was racing around
the same group of leaders all race, which shows I was on the
pace, but there's nothing you can do after an incident like
that. But qualifying and practice showed we are getting on
the pace step by step, so I am looking forward to Silverstone
in seven days' time.
Flavio Briatore, Managing Director
Things looked good after qualifying, but the race showed us
that we still have some way to go. Heikki had his race spoiled
on lap one through no fault of his own. Giancarlo drove well
but the car seemed too heavy in the middle stint, and it cost
too much time. He showed good aggression to keep Fernando
behind, but the story of the afternoon is that we still have
work to do. The gap with BMW is almost nothing, but we need
to convert the promise of Saturday afternoon into hard points
on Sunday.
Pat Symonds, Executive Director of Engineering
This afternoon's race failed to fulfil the promise of qualifying.
In Heikki's case, he was pushed off by Trulli on lap one and
from then on, it was bound to be difficult as we tried to
shift his stops around to get him out of the inevitable traffic.
Giancarlo's first stint was competitive, and on the softer
tyres at the end he was also quick. But the middle stint did
us a lot of damage relative to BMW. Looking forward, we have
another race in seven days' time – and the chance to
repair the damage from this afternoon. Our Silverstone test
went very well ten days ago, and we will be looking to fight
back strongly.
|
