By Kristien Barker
March 11 2006

Reaction from Renaults Technical staff after the first qualifying of the season in Bahrain where world driver champion Fernando Alonso managed a sturdy 4th place and Giancarlo Fisichella only managed 9th after engine problems Pat Symonds, Executive Director of Engineering
There was a lot for the teams to learn today to maximise their performance under the new rules and as always, we did some things well, and there is still room to improve on others. With Fernando, we fortunately left ourselves a safety margin at the end of the Super-pole session. This meant that when his first lap on new tyres was not competitive, he was able to continue on a second quick lap. Giancarlo lost speed as soon as he put new tyres on, and we do not yet know why. From a team point of view, we are on the second row with what we believe to be a competitive strategy which bodes well. Our main concern is with identifying and resolving the problem with Giancarlo’s car before assessing his chances.

Denis Chevrier, Head of Trackside Engine Operations
We saw plenty of incident during the new qualifying format but in the end, for the Renault team, the deciding factor was once again the ability to extract maximum performance over a single timed lap – just like last year. Fernando made a mistake on his first lap and set his fastest time on the second, which puts his relatively high grid position in a favourable light. Things were less positive for Giancarlo, who did not have a normal level of performance at his disposal as his car lost speed during the final part of the Super-pole session. We will be investigating this closely tonight to find the reason. As for the overall picture, we find ourselves in a very similar situation to last year, with the same question marks at the same point of the weekend. I think the real picture will only begin to be clear after the first dozen laps of the race.