Bell: R28's the fourth fastest car on the grid

RENAULT

Thursday 24th July 2008

Renault technical director Bob Bell is optimistic that his team can challenge BMW in the upcoming races after taking a step forward in Germany.

Fernando Alonso qualified in fifth place for the grand prix, finding himself ahead of both BMW drivers, while Nelson Piquet Jr's one-stop strategy saw him finish the race in second place.

The weekend's performances have given Renault a confidence boost, with Bell reckoning that the R28 is now the fourth fastest car on the grid.

"We're getting closer and closer, we're getting in amongst the BMWs now and we've got a little bit of an advantage over Red Bull and Toyota," Bell told Renault's official podcast.

"I think we're solidly the fourth quickest car and possibly in there on occasion with the BMWs which is where we expect to be in terms of the progress we've been making.

"I think that the points gap is so close now in the midfield that there is absolutely no reason, given our performance and given our performance development rate, that we can't now start inching ahead of that midfield.

"As I say I think it's too much to hope that we could ever be third in the Championship but we can certainly cement fourth and end up with potentially the third quickest car."

Bell also made it clear that in order to achieve their goals for the season Renault will continue to develop their 2008 challenger until the Singapore GP even though many of the other teams will be concentrating their efforts entirely on the 2009 regulations by that stage of the season.

"We've got developments planned right out to race 15 at the minute and we'll go beyond that if we find anything worth while," said Bell.

"Obviously this year is substantially different from previous years in the main respect that the regulations next year are so different that you couldn't really carry over development from one car to the other.

"Often at the end of the season the cars are sufficiently similar from one year to the next that some of your next year's development can actually transfer to the current car, you won't be able to do that this year.

"From an aero point of view development will become a little bit more scarce towards the end of the season, nonetheless we've still got a long programme to get through yet."