The outspoken director thinks that the key of the race was on the qualifying session on Saturday. Gascoyne thinks that if they would have gotten pole they could have had a big chance to win the race:
“I thought it would be faster (the new Ferrari) – I didn't think we'd be able to race it. If we'd been on pole here, and we were only a few tenths off, perhaps we could have controlled the race and won it.”
Gascoyne thinks that they could have beaten the old Ferrari that was raced until Imola:
“Well, if they say it's a second a lap quicker (the new Ferrari), and we were only six seconds down after 60 laps, probably we would have done! (won at Barcelona)”
Renault is expecting a tougher race at the A1-Ring, despite a new spec engine that was tested yesterday by Trulli, but they are looking forward to Monaco where they will bring more improvements:
"Yes, that's good (the new engine). It's a good step. We've got new parts for Monaco. The next race will be more of a problem, and then we've got to look to win in Monaco. We have to loom to win on several circuits, and we have to be on the podium everywhere.”
Both Williams and McLaren criticized Renault's decision to limit their testing for 2 hours of private testing at the races. They said Renault was going to clean the track for them. Gascoyne now has reasons to smile and counterattack:
“We seem to be cleaning the track OK, and my tyre test teams [McLaren and Williams!] are doing all right. In fact they keep complaining that we're on better tyres than them all the time, so I'm not quite sure what they're doing all the time they're testing…”
Renault is quite confident on their possibilities this year and they have not stopped bringing up their expectations.
View a Printer Friendly version of this Story.