Renault: full of dilemmas

The Renault F1 has quite the full plate right now they have the son of a world champion that is not developing into the superstar that many thought he would become and they have a car that can't hold a candle to the McLarens, Saubers and Ferraris. Its starting to look bad for a team that only a couple of years ago was on top of the world.

There first problem is trying to get young Nelson Piquet back on track. Pat Symonds, Renaults director of enginerring, says that a Piquet needs a little bit of confidence.

"It has been difficult for him (Piquet), but he has put in some good races," Symonds told Renault's official podcast. "This time last year, a lot of people were thinking Heikki was entering his last few races, and Canada was just an incredible weekend for him because on Saturday could things really have gone worse?

"He had two major accidents, one of them in qualifying and it is still a miracle to me we got the car out in qualifying to get anywhere. (Then he had) a fabulous race on Sunday in Canada and he never looked back.

"I've said it so often before how much with a driver or sportsman is about self esteem and believing in yourself. And all Nelson needs to do is turn that corner and believe in himself and it will happen again."

Piquet himself beleives that he will improve once the F1 circus returns to Europe and to tracks he is familiar with. "It's normal for them to be pushing me, this is the way Renault is," Piquet said. "They like to push the drivers and they think this is better. The driver needs to know how to focus himself, put things aside, and work."

Renault also trying to decide what to do about their car, whether to work on the current car which has them sitting seventh in the constructors championship or start developing a new one for next year. With the new technical regulations coming in for 2009, Renault may start focusing thier efforts on the new car. "It is always difficult," Symonds said. "And the level of difficulty depends on two major factors - one is where you are sitting in the current championship, how threatened you are and what you can achieve.

"If you are in a solid third place and unlikely to get second but unlikely to drop to fourth, more or less as we were last year, you can think about turning your attention to the following year. If you are fighting, like we are doing this year, then you have got to keep the development."

"There is nothing wrong with keeping the development going if it is all applicable to next year's car, unfortunately this time there is very little that is applicable to next year's car. Next year's car is a very, very different animal, completely different aerodynamic rules, the KERS system, slick tyres - lot of things that will make it a very different car. So it is all the more important that we start early on it.

"And it makes it a very hard for us to do. We are a big team but we are not big enough to handle two major projects and some of the people who are maybe struggling this year, for example Honda, are pushing a lot more effort into next year than we have been able to. We may see a little bit of a shake-up of the establishment next year."

"We have gone from Australia where we had a car that was definitely not the car we wanted, nor the car we needed, to a car that is a great deal better."

"All the things that were put in place to make the car better are still in place and still producing results, so in terms of performance I feel very confident.

"But I am a little bit more concerned by the fact we are not finishing races for various reasons and that is where we have to concentrate as well."

Symonds: Piquet needs self-belief (Autosport.com)

Renault admit development dilemma (Autosport.com)