Fernando Alonso has dismissed suggestions
Renault will soon be in a position to fight for the podium again in
Formula 1, despite lining up third on the grid for last weekend's French Grand Prix.
Though he may have shone in qualifying at Magny-Cours – as he had done in front of his adoring home fans in Barcelona just under two months previously – the Spaniard ultimately drifted away in the race, as his R28 proved unable to keep pace over long runs with those he had out-pointed over a single lap on Saturday afternoon.
In France, indeed, such was the disparity in performance over the two days that the former double world champion slipped back to eighth spot at the chequered flag, only narrowly nabbing the final point and being overtaken by under-fire rookie team-mate
Nelsinho Piquet en route. He subsequently underlined his conviction that – for the time being at least – the
Régie's 2008 challenger remains only a ‘middle of the grid' car.
“At this moment I do not know if we're in a position to get closer to the other teams,” Alonso told Spanish newspaper
AS. “I don't think we can go much better at
Silverstone.
“There have been races at which we seem to have improved, but then the car is slow in the race with a lot of fuel. In the British Grand Prix, we will go into the points and not much further.”
The 26-year-old also re-iterated his belief that the Enstone-based concern should consider abandoning continued development of the R28 in favour of turning its full focus towards the 2009 machine, claiming that any aero improvements to the squad's current mount will only result in a gain of two tenths of a second between now and season's end.
