Formula One news

Piquet doubtful of Renault recovery

Nelson Piquet has cast a shadow over the possibility that Renault can make a jump to the front of the current field in the same manner it did last season. Suffering a miserable start in both 2008 and 2009, Brazilian Piquet believes that an upturn to race-winning form is much less likely this season due to French team's rate of development.

Nelson is yet to break into the points in 2009

With the midfield form of early 2008 eventually becoming a string of strong results and two consecutive victories for Fernando Alonso in Singapore and Japan, team-mate Piquet is uncertain over Renault's chances of repeating the feat this season. "Last year I think we had a better car than this year," the 23-year-old, who is yet to score this season, said to Autosport. "Last year's was progressing better, or maybe it's that everyone else is progressing quicker.

"The development never stops; the key is to develop quicker than the other cars and it's not going to be an easy second half of the year for us." With the firm belief that the championship title would be a possibility in a front-running car, Nelsinho remains downcast as the team currently lies seventh in the constructors' championship.

Piquet raced to 12th - two places ahead of Alonso - at Silverstone

"Now you can really see where the teams with the big budgets really make a difference because you can have a lot of people working many hours a day and the small teams can't do this," he continued. "The middle of the pack is very close, so hopefully for the next race there will be a few upgrades."

Just four and a half points out of the top five, Nelson did admit that moving up the order is still possible. "The car looks okay and the team is always very optimistic that we can fight for the top five," he added, with that position current held by Williams with McLaren in sixth. "At the first test in Portugal it was way off the pace and we recovered, but it's still hard."

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