Renault duo not making predictions ahead of Monaco...

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From Planetf1.com:

Renault duo not making predictions ahead of Monaco

Monday May 17 2004

Renault may be one of only two teams to have brought both cars home in the points in all five races of the season, but Jarno Trulli is not betting on the trend continuing in Monaco this weekend.

Trulli, who heads to the Principality on the back of his best finish of the year in Spain, believes that although the team has a great reliability record on their side they are going to need a bit more than that if they hope to leave Monaco with another double points-haul.

"As a team, we are strong with perfect reliability, and motivation is high for Monaco. We will only find out how fast we are when we actually get on to the track, but the circuit should suit us," he said.

"Even though the layout stays the same, Monaco is a different race every year, with its own surprises and characteristics. We made progress with the car at Barcelona, and it was very consistent in performance during the race. I think this can be a good race for us, but there are too many variables now to make any definite predictions."

One of those variables is qualifying as the Monte Carlo street circuit is notoriously difficult to pass on. And qualifying is one point, which Fernando Alonso feels is Renault's weakness.

"To use that race performance consistently, we need to work hard on qualifying further up the grid, and that will be even more important in Monaco where it is so difficult to overtake - if we get stuck behind slower cars, it is much harder to make up positions there than at other circuits."

Like Trulli, he too is not willing to make any assumptions about the outcome of the weekend. "The race is so different to anywhere else that we cannot make any predictions until we have started running on Thursday," Alonso said.

"It is very important to know the circuit well and to have experience racing there, to know how the track changes, and to best understand how to set the car up and cope with the changing conditions - grip levels increase very quickly, and that can catch you out if you don't have the experience to adapt."