Formula One news

Difficult day for Renault

It was a difficult afternoon for the Renault team and there were mixed feelings after seeing Fernando Alonso and Nelson Piquet qualify 11th and 21st for tomorrow's Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne's Albert Park. 

"As expected the times were very close and while I was reasonably satisfied with the performance of my car this morning, a failure of the differential upset the balance and made it extremely difficult to drive," said Alonso. "I am sure we can bounce back in the race and we will work hard tonight to make sure that is the case."

Piquet commented, "I was not able to do much running throughout the weekend for different reasons, and that was evident this afternoon in qualifying. I am disappointed because I was hoping to do better for my first Grand Prix, but I will try my best tomorrow to move through the field and above all to learn as much as possible."

Engineering chief Pat Symonds added, "A very disappointing day. Nelson has really suffered from lack of mileage all weekend and we saw the result of that this afternoon. With Fernando we thought we were comfortably in the top ten and in good shape, but a problem with the differential appears to have compromised his lap and put him on the wrong side of what is a very competitive group of cars."

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