According to Piquet, Renault will not be able to improve its performance

Nelson Piquet, interviewed by the English magazine Autosport, is pessimistic about the performance of the Renault team in the second half of the season. According to him, his team will not be able to climb up the rankings as they did last year, even if there are improvements.

In 2008, Renault had scored 12 points by mid-season, compared to 11 in 2009. But according to its second driver, the performance of the diamond team will not match that of 2008 this year. During the second half of the season, Renault scored 68 points and secured two victories.

« Last year, I think we had a better car than this year », Piquet admitted. « Last year, we also improved the car more quickly. We must also take into account the fact that everyone is progressing at the same time this season, more than last year. »

The development of the R29 doesn’t stop, we just have to progress faster than the other teams, and that’s no easy feat! The second half of the season is likely to be just as challenging.

The Brazilian also considers the teams’ budgets as an important factor. According to him, it’s at this point in the season that we differentiate the big teams from the small ones by their budget level: « When the big teams can have people working all season, the small ones are already focused on the following year… »

Despite his bad feeling, Piquet Junior wants to believe and hopes to perform as well as last year in Germany. The Brazilian had secured a second position behind Lewis Hamilton, the best result of his career.

« We are very close in the middle of the pack. If we have good updates in Germany, we can get closer to the best. The car is okay and we can fight for the top 5 according to our engineers. »