Whilst acknowledging that the developments brought to
Renault's R28 in testing at Barcelona this week have improved the car, the squad's talisman driver
Fernando Alonso insisted he doubted it would be enough to see the underperforming team take a leap up the
Formula 1 pecking order.
For the first time since his rookie year in the top flight with Minardi all the way back in 2001, Alonso will enter his home grand prix at the end of this month without a machine capable of fighting for the upper reaches of the grid – indeed, making it into the top ten in qualifying will be considered almost an achievement in itself with the
Régie's unloved 2008 challenger.
Though he topped the timesheets on the third day of testing around the Circuit de Catalunya – almost a second quicker than old adversary
Michael Schumacher, the man whom he beat to secure both his world drivers' crowns in 2005 and 2006 – the Spaniard did so on
Bridgestone's markedly quicker, 2009-spec slick rubber. He admitted afterwards that the showing was somewhat artificial.
“The car is going better with the changes, it is true,” the 26-year-old said in an interview with Spanish newspaper
Diario AS, “but we will not go forwards much. We are still unable to escape from the middle group of the grid.”
The Enstone-based concern ran a new bodywork package – including a Red Bull-style dorsal fin – in an effort to unlock some pace from the R28, which thus far has notched up just six points from the opening three races of the 2008 campaign, all of them courtesy of Alonso. That is three points fewer even than the French outfit's tally this time last year, what was at the time considered to be a dramatic fall from grace given Renault's championship-winning form over the previous two seasons.
“We have improved but the others have as well,” Alonso asserted. “The picture is going to be more-or-less the same as it was before this test.
“We are in a group in which – if everything goes well – you qualify eighth; otherwise you lose time to
Red Bull,
Toyota and
Williams and you are 14th.”
