The Renault R30 of Robert Kubica and Vitaly Petrov is a major improvement from the previous Formula 1 car of the French manufacturer, the 2009 R29.
“In terms of its strengths, the car is kind on its tires,” said Alan Permane, chief engineer of the Renault F1 Team.
“Last year, we struggled with rear wear in particular, but the R30 is far better balanced in terms of tire wear and that’s a good bonus with no refueling. As for weaknesses, we know that we need to improve our overall downforce. We’ve put updates on the car at every race this year and there’s more coming.” The improvements are also a direct consequence of crucial work having been done at the factory in Enstone, UK. “We have a very good wind tunnel, which was upgraded over the winter; we’ve done good correlation work between the tunnel and the track; and we trust what the tunnel tells us,” Permane continued.
“Our aero department is performing better than ever and they’re finding very good gains at the moment. Downforce levels are increasing almost on a daily basis and we should have another good step forward in China.” The team Renault’s leading driver Robert Kubica lies currently 7th in the standings with 30 points. The next Grand Prix will be held in Shanghai, China. “Shanghai will be the opposite of Sepang in terms of temperatures -- it’s something like 13 or 14 degrees Celsius over there -- yet we’ll be running the same tire compounds as we did in Malaysia,” Permane said. “The challenge will be to get the hard compound working, especially because the long straight means that you can’t simply add downforce to get the tires working because it costs you too much straight line speed. In Melbourne, we had a suspicion that the car wasn’t quite as competitive in cold conditions, so we’ll be working hard to avoid a similar problem in Shanghai.”
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