With the aid of a light fuel load and the latest developments from Renault's Enstone base, Fernando Alonso vaulted from the lower mid-field to qualify second for last Sunday's Chinese Grand Prix. Part of the package was the new rear diffuser fitted to the R29 challenger."We were very pleased with the basic performance of the car as we took a good step forward with the new diffuser that we fitted to Fernando’s car," Renault Technical Director Bob Bell explained. "We’re all very happy about that and the effort that went into producing it. Sadly we didn’t bring home the result that we hoped for, but that is more to do with the strategic approach we had to adopt and how the race unfolded."
"There is more to come as the diffuser is a very new area of development and there will be a big push to continue its development over the next few months. We’re also working on various upgrades to other parts of the car that we would normally work on at this time of year."
While Alonso raced solo with the diffuser in Shanghai, this weekend in Bahrain team-mate Nelson Piquet will have the same equipment.
Meanwhile, the team has yet to announce if it will continue to run without KERS, as was the case in China, or re-fit the technology in Bahrain. "As we’ve already said, we will consider the merits of KERS on a race by race because it’s not a system that is categorically quicker at every track," Bell said.
"I think we can be quite confident that we can repeat the sort of performance we showed in China during qualifying as we now have the basic pace in the car. And if we have a dry race, I’m confident that we can bring home the points from the race to match our qualifying performance."
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