Montagny impresses Renault engineers

Franck Montagny has been announced as Renault's third driver next season. In Pat Symonds' eyes, this decision is just reward for his work during 2003. "We ran a number of drivers last winter with a view to taking on our second test driver, and ...

Franck Montagny has been announced as Renault's third driver next season. In Pat Symonds' eyes, this decision is just reward for his work during 2003.

"We ran a number of drivers last winter with a view to taking on our second test driver, and Franck came out of that very well. If we looked at consistency, if we looked at feedback, he came out of it very well," explained Pat, the team's executive director of engineering.

Franck Montagny.

Photo by LAT Photographic.

"Franck then had a run at the French Grand Prix in the Friday test session. He had difficult track conditions to contend with when it began raining, and an engine problem forced him to swap cars. In spite of that, he made no mistakes: I was really impressed with the way he handled it."

On September 16, Franck Montagny completed a full test session for the Renault F1 Team at Barcelona. "We took him to Barcelona last week to do some work for us, and once again, he did a very good job," continued Pat. "It was a full-test program, looking at some of our Suzuka tyres and working on developments that we were applying to the 2004 car. Once again, he did as a good a job as we'd expect of any test driver."

The Frenchman is already looking forward to 2004. As for Pat, he knows that a promising career is about to take another step forward. "I think Franck has a great future ahead of him," he concluded.