Renault’s Jarno Trulli may have won the Monaco Grand Prix, but the Italian says that this weekend’s race at the Nurburgring will be a better guide to the true pace of the French team’s R24.
Renault’s Jarno Trulli may have won the Monaco Grand Prix, but the Italian says that this weekend’s race at the Nurburgring will be a better guide to the true pace of the French team’s R24.
“This weekend we start again,” said Trulli, “it is a new challenge. We made some improvements to the car before Monaco, but it was difficult to judge them accurately last weekend because it is such a strange circuit. The Nurburgring will give us a much better idea of how much we have improved the car’s competitiveness.”
Trulli’s team-mate, Fernando Alonso, added: “Unlike Monaco, where the driver can make a big difference. Nurburgring is a track where you can only start to be really quick when you have set the car up and feel comfortable with it – there are not many places where the driver can add something extra.”
“We think the R24 will be competitive. I don’t know if we can fight for a win again, it will be very tough. But we will be aiming for a podium finish,” the Spaniard added.
Renault’s chassis technical director Bob Bell said that the weather conditions in Germany could be in his team’s favour.
“The Nurburgring is a more standard circuit than Monaco, and will be a better measure of the progress we have made. Conditions can be cooler than at other races and we saw in Melbourne that our car was strong in lower-than- normal temperatures. I think we are capable of racing very strongly at the Nurburgring,” he said.