Renault head for Canada

While the first engines for Canada were sent to Enstone yesterday, the Viry team is working on its programme for next week.

Fabrice Lom, Jarno's engineer from Viry, hasn't had a lot of time for himself since he came back from Monaco. "The next race is quite far away, across the Atlantic, and we had to prepare very quickly all the engines we will use for this race," he says, "As usual, we went through our meetings regarding the last Grand Prix, and we have written all the memos related to it. Then we started thinking about the race to come."

The first Montréal-spec RS23 engines left the factory yesterday. "They have been sent to Enstone and they will be fitted to the chassis," Fabrice reckons, "Those engines will take part to the first test sessions on Friday, and to qualifying." What about the rest of the freight? "It will be packed today, and it will be sent to Canada either tonight or tomorrow morning. All the engines we'll use next week have been put on the bench on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday."

After this running on the bench, the team had to make a choice. "Each V10 has its own characteristics," Fabrice continues, "We chose the best RS23 for the Friday sessions and for the first qualifying. The other engines' performance is slightly less impressive but it doesn't really matter because you don't look for the last tenth on a Saturday morning."

The race-specs RS23 are much different. "They have specific parts in order to cope with the second qualifying and the race. No need to choose, then. These are little gems, really!"

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