Planet-F1

Piquet: No hope of a repeat turnaround

Friday 3rd July 2009

Nelson Piquet has just about ruled out any possibility of Renault's 2009 season seeing a repeat of last year's turnaround.

Despite starting the 2008 season on the back foot, Renault put in a massive charge to progress up the order in the latter stages of the Championship, resulting in Fernando Alonso claiming back-to-back wins in Singapore and Japan.

The team's good run at the end of the season, which saw them collect 49 points in the final six races, elevated the Anglo/French squad to fourth in the Constructors' Championship.

And although this year's campaign has begun in similar fashion, Renault have sitting on just one point less than they were at the same time last season, Piquet has poured cold water of the possibility of a repeat recovery.

"Last year I think we had a better car than this year," Piquet told Autosport. "Last year's was progressing better... or maybe it's that everyone else is progressing quicker.

"The development never stops. The key is to develop quicker than the other cars and it's not going to be an easy second half of the year for us.

"Now you can really see where the teams with the big budgets really make a difference, because you can have a lot of people working many hours a day and the small teams can't do this."

The Brazilian, though, isn't yet ready to write off Renault's season entirely, saying they can still fight for top five positions.

"The middle of the pack is very close," he said. "Hopefully for the next race there will be a few upgrades.

"The car looks okay and the team is always very optimistic that we can fight for the top five. In the first test in Portugal, it was way off the pace and we recovered. But it's still hard."