Piquet cautious on Renault updates

Nelsinho Piquet is cautious about how much Renault can improve thanks to the new updates to be introduced this week, although the the Brazilian admitted the car is already better.

Renault, who have endured a difficult start to the season, are pinning their hopes for the year on all the improvements they will introduce in this week`s test at Barcelona.

The team already tested a new front wing and other updates yesterday, and introduced a new engine cover fin in today`s session.

Piquet reckons the car is already a step forward, although he says it`s hard to judge by how much.

“I think the car is better everywhere,” Piquet told reporters after the test.

“Obviously it`s difficult to calculate how much better the track is since the last time we were here because they had an LMS race and then BMW drove here yesterday and cleaned up the track a little bit, so it`s difficult to say if the track is much better or if the car improved a lot.

“Obviously set-up wise we have improved throughout the three races, so coming back after two months obviously we would have a gain. When you gain on aero you gain everywhere.

“You gain on braking, you gain on speed on the corner, on the straights. So I think we gained a little bit everywhere.”

The Brazilian said Renault are doing things step by step in order to see what works and what doesn`t.

“Obviously we have four days of testing so we are going to test things step by step every day,” he said. “But obviously it`s not a case of putting them on the car and making them work straight away. You need to put them on the car and develop them slowly.

“So I think the good thing of having these new bits is that you have more doors for improvement; you can improve in different ways. So at the moment we didn`t find a one-second gain, but we found some doors to improve.

“It will be four days of data collection and a lot of experiments but I`m sure it will open a lot of doors for improvement for the car.”

Despite his caution, Piquet reckons the updated car will allow Renault to get both cars into Q3 in the Spanish Grand Prix next week.

“I thought the car was very good today and we have another three days of testing and there`s margin to improve. I think I`m optimistic that we can put both cars in the top ten in qualifying.”

15.4.2008   ▪ Formula One    ▪ Piquet, Renault    ▪ www.autosport.com