2007 Chinese Grand Prix, Sunday - 7 OCT 2007
The ING Renault F1 Team endured a tough afternoon today in
wet-dry conditions at the 2007 Chinese Grand Prix.
Starting from P13 (Heikki Kovalainen) and P18 (Giancarlo
Fisichella), and with rain forecast for much of the race,
the team chose to fuel the cars heavy for a planned one-stop
strategy. The race began in wet conditions and intermittent
showers doused the circuit for the first fifteen laps, meaning
both drivers ran Bridgestone's wet tyres. However, the heavy
fuel load left both Heikki and Giancarlo struggling with an
inconsistent handling balance, and they lost time relative
to the lighter-fuelled cars around them. The team made the
switch to dry tyres at the correct time, and at this point,
with little hope of a points finish, decided to split its
strategies: Giancarlo was light fuelled and therefore needed
to make another stop before the end of the race, while Heikki
was fuelled to the finish. With his lighter fuel load, Giancarlo
was extremely competitive and ran as high as P5 as he tried
to build a big enough gap to his competitors to emerge in
front after his final stop. Ultimately, he failed by several
seconds, and the Renault drivers ran within five seconds of
each other to the finish, chasing the Red Bulls of Coulthard
and Webber to the flag. While the team scored zero points
today for the first time since the 2006 Hungarian Grand Prix,
the R27 proved encouragingly competitive in the dry conditions
at the end of the race (with Giancarlo setting fourth fastest
lap of the race), while results elsewhere confirmed the ING
Renault F1 Team's final position in the 2007 constructors'
championship.
Heikki Kovalainen, 9th position
The start of the race was a disaster for me: I made a good
start and climbed three positions, but the understeer was
just really bad, with low grip. Four cars passed me, and I
lost too much time. We changed to dry tyres at exactly the
right time, and after that the car was pretty good. In the
middle of the race, I lost time in a very strange way: Kimi
had just lapped me but he was on old wet tyres, while my dry
tyres were new. I couldn't pass off-line because it was wet,
and I didn't want to have an accident with a front runner,
so I lost about seven or eight seconds until I could overtake
him. After that, I pushed as hard as possible, but I couldn't
get past David at the end: I was quicker, but not by enough.
The car ended up running pretty well in the dry, but this
result is because of my mistake in qualifying yesterday: without
it, I would have been in the top ten, with a better result.
The team deserved a better result than we got, as the potential
was in the car to be fourth, and I'm sorry we couldn't do
it for them today. Now we need to go to Brazil, and just go
for broke.
Giancarlo Fisichella, 11th position
I did my best all the way through today, but I think we could
have done better with the strategy. The car was very heavy
and inconsistent at the start, and we could have been much
faster on a lighter fuel load. We changed to dry tyres at
the right moment, and after that, I knew I had one more stop
to make so I just pushed to the limit. It nearly worked for
us, but we just ran out of time. It is frustrating to finish
only eleventh after overtaking so many cars today, especially
because we were capable of more.
Pat Symonds, Executive Director of Engineering
The difficult, changing conditions and our poor starting positions
made for a challenging afternoon. We tried to cover all angles
with two different strategies midway through the race, and
they turned out to be very similar. Ultimately, though, we
did not have the pace when it mattered at the critical points
of the weekend. However, our position in the constructors'
championship is now sealed, and we will aim to round the year
off strongly during what promises to be an exciting weekend
in Interlagos.
Denis Chevrier, Head of Trackside Engine Operations
The weather played a critical role in the strategic choices
we made yesterday afternoon and this morning, and the unexpected,
changeable wet-dry conditions meant those choices failed to
pay off today. Clearly, we were not helped by our starting
positions of thirteenth and eighteenth, and it is frustrating
to fall just short of the points and miss out on the opportunity
to take advantage of the conditions. We must now move on to
Brazil, learn what we can from this race, and look to finish
the year with a strong race where we achieve our full potential.
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