Renault tech chiefs satisfied so far

Two races in to the 2004 season, the Renault's Technical Directors Bob Bell and Rob White are pleased with the team's performance so far.

With the first two races of the 2004 season now behind us, the respective chassis and engine technical directors are pleased with the Renault F1 Team's performance so far this year.

"It is rewarding to be one of only two teams to have scored points with both cars in Melbourne and Sepang," commented Rob White, who leads the engine development team in Paris. "Our preparations during the winter and prior to the events have allowed the race team to focus on achieving the best race results without the spectre of reliability concerns."

While the result in Malaysia didn't necessarily live up to pre-event expectations, it served as a reminder that the team will need to get every last detail spot on in order to achieve its objectives this year.

"We saw in Malaysia that this season, more so than ever, there is absolutely no margin for error," reinforced Chassis TD Bob Bell. "The regulations, and the general level of competitiveness at the front of the field, mean the penalties for even the smallest mistake are extremely high." It is a point reinforced by Rob White: "If we err, we will be punished for it by our competitors. We must strive for perfect race weekends."

However conscious they are, though, that there is always room for improvement, both men have recognised the quality of results from the first two rounds of the 2004 championship. "It is an indicator of the strength of the Enstone-Viry collaboration that we collected points with both cars in Malaysia despite believing we did not make the most of the package," concludes Rob White.

His counterpart at Enstone echoes the sentiment: "At the moment, we have a 100% finishing record and are third in the constructors' championship," observes Bob. "If we can still say the same at the end of the year, then that is a result we will be pretty pleased with."

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