Nelsinho Piquet has been tipped to give double world champion team-mate
Fernando Alonso a serious run for his money again in the British Grand Prix next weekend, after getting the better of the Spaniard for the first time in the eighth outing on the 2008
Formula 1 schedule at Magny-Cours.
The
Renault rookie has been the subject of rumours for weeks, with some suggesting his seat at the French concern is under threat should he fail to raise his game – and fast. He responded to those detractors by putting a disappointing seven-race run behind him in the heart of rural France, qualifying inside the top ten for only the second time in his fledgling career in the top flight and going on to take advantage of a late-race error by Alonso to dive past and take the chequered flag seventh, in so doing successfully scoring his breakthrough world championship points.
“These points take a lot of pressure away,” the 22-year-old told German magazine
Auto Motor und Sport. “From now on things will go even better. I didn't want to take any risks in Magny-Cours, because I absolutely had to finish the race.”
Reflecting on his frustrating start to the season, Piquet acknowledged his French Grand Prix result had come as something of a weight off his shoulders, but maintained it was not the first occasion on which he could feasibly have finished inside the points had Lady Luck only been on his side.
“I knew what I could prove,” he told reporters during this week's group
F1 test at
Silverstone. “I knew what I was doing. The car broke down a couple of times – okay, I made a mistake in Barcelona and I wasn't quick enough in Turkey, but I had a few brake problems in Canada, when we could have finished in the points quite easily.
“There have been a lot of races where the car has broken down when we could have maybe [got points]. It was just a matter of time of getting a good set-up on the car to make sure I was a bit more comfortable, and having the car finish the race.
