Fuente: © Renault F1 Team (English)
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FORMULA 1 - RENAULT: Montreal: Over at Red Bull Racing

/noticias.info/ Fabrice Lom, the Technical Coordinator for Renault at Red Bull Racing reflects on the Canadian Grand Prix and the first podium of the season for the Renault V8.





Fabrice, you came back from Montreal with a podium, you must be delighted?
Absolutely, everybody is very happy with this result which I believe is well deserved. While the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve should not have suited us on paper, we were competitive there from Friday. We made some more progress on Saturday and Mark Webber was the fifth fastest driver in Q2, the fastest part of qualifying. Our best result of the season in these conditions.

Unfortunately Mark was less successful after that...
He went off the track just at the end of Q2, which meant he would start the race from tenth on the grid and without being free to decide his strategy. This situation seriously impacted on his race because it meant he had to stop twice and he was constantly behind slower cars who only had to stop once.

David, in comparison, had a perfect race?
He did not qualify in the top 10 and that allowed us to adapt our strategy. We expected some safety car running in Montreal, and so we filled his fuel tank to the top and asked him to stop only once. And we managed it because, even on heavy on fuel, the RB4 did not have any problems with its brakes, which was not the case for everybody. When the safety car came out around lap 20, the leaders stopped, but David was able to continue. Then, he did not make any mistakes and finished the race in third. A good day's work...

Yes, it now means that you are fourth in the constructors' championship. Is the 2008 objective already achieved?
Far from it. We know that hoping to finish third is not realistic, but on the other hand we have a double objective: to defend against Toyota, who scored 8 points in Montreal, and to move forward with our performance with next season in mind. If we can continue to fight among the top teams from now until the end of the season, we will be happy.

During out last chat, you were hesitant about changing David's engine after Monaco. What decision did you finally take?
David used a new engine. Our two drivers are now back on the same engine cycle.

Does that make life easier for you?
Putting all the eggs in the same basket is not always the best option. Imagine if a certain specification of engine has a technical problem: instead of having a problem with just a single car, we would have it with two. We would then really suffer.

In terms of logistics, you must also organise things in a different way. At Red Bull, the engines that have completed two consecutive Grands Prix are used for Friday running when we have free practice for the next Grand Prix. It now means that it will be necessary to review two V8s and not one. Having said that, I hope that the cycle remains the same until the end of the season: that will mean that we not encountered any problems in the race! notas_de_prensa_archivo