Missed opportunity for Renault

Renault is very disappointed after yesterday's Canadian Grand Prix as the team missed an opportunity to have both drivers on the podium and maybe even the win. Third on the gird, Jarno Trulli's car failed right at the start of the race, with what is suspected to be a transmission failure.

Fernando Alonso.

Photo by Brousseau Photo.

Fernando Alonso suffered an overly long pit stop, which lost him a few places but he was working his way back up towards a podium finish. Running fourth and rapidly closing on the Williams of Ralf Schumacher, Alonso unfortunately suffered the same problem as Trulli and was forced to retire.

"I believe we have lost the opportunity for our best result of the year," said executive director of engineering Pat Symonds after the double DNF. "However, even after Jarno's retirement, Fernando was looking good for a strong podium position in spite of a refuelling problem during his first pit-stop -- he was catching Ralf at nearly a second a lap when he retired."

Symonds thinks that Alonso's strategy could have given him the chance to fight for victory if it had played out. "Fernando's delay in his first stop was eight seconds, and that was exactly the gap to Michael on lap 20 once they had both made their first stops," he explained.

"We believe therefore that Fernando would have re-assumed the lead of the race once the three-stop runners had made their second stop, ahead of Michael. Given they were running similar length second stints, we could have legitimately hoped to fight for the victory."

"Looking at this level of performance, one can only assume Jarno could have been in an even better position thanks to his higher placing on the grid."

It was the first double DNF for Renault this year, after showing admirable reliability previously. Both cars had finished in the points at every race bar one -- Monaco, where Alonso crashed in the tunnel.

The team still holds second in the constructors' standings but is 63 points behind Ferrari. Thanks to Williams being disqualified from the Canadian GP, BAR has closed the gap to Renault and is now only six points behind.