Oliver White
Giancarlo Fisichella has reacted somewhat angrily to comments made in the Italian press yesterday regarding the development of the R27 and the progress the Renault team have made so far this season. With the R27 not performing well enough to compete with the McLaren’s and Ferrari’s, one has to ask what Renault’s aims are for the rest of the season. They must have surely written off any chance of retaining the titles, and with that difficult hurdle admitted, what else is there to do for the Anglo-French squad? Concentrate on next year?
Well these are just the sort of comments that have been attributed to Fisichella, and the Italian driver is not happy and has denied saying such things. For sure Giancarlo must be frustrated as this was, afterall, meant to be his year. But with the team struggling to sort out the problems with the new car, Fisichella and team mate Heikki Kovalainen are left to pick up the minor points on race day. And despite a positive test in Barcelona last week, Fisichella is not hyping anything this weekend.
These very negative comments about the team never came from me. Of course, the situation is not easy at the moment, but I would never show such a lack of respect to the people who are working day and night to get to the bottom of our problems. I’m both disappointed and angry by these so-called quotes.
The Barcelona weekend’s going to be a fairly difficult one. We’ll need a little more time to understand where exactly we need to work to improve. We’re heading in the right direction, that’s for sure. We’re beginning to see in what areas we have to concentrate our efforts thanks to the accurate measurements made during last week’s test. Giancarlo Fisichella.
Is there enough time left in 2007? Sounds silly, I know, but the pace that Formula One develops at the question is very reasonable. And unfortunately, the answer is probably that there isn’t enough time for the team to turn the season around. They may get everything sorted by the remaining five races or so, but by then they will be too far behind.
So should Renault write off 2007 and focus on 2008? It wouldn’t be good PR, that’s for sure. But I do feel Renault should maybe take a couple of personnel away from the front line and dedicate their efforts to the R28. Because believe me, if 2008 turns out like 2007, Renault won’t be around for much longer.
Add comment