By role
July 3 2004

Fernando Alonso looks confident at tomorrow's race after setting the pole today at the French Grand Prix. It was the first pole for the Spaniard this season at Renault's home Grand Prix and it can prove to be a great chance for the team to score the second win of the season. After his lap Alonso was indeed quite happy to be in the pole one more time:

"It's nice to be here! The car has been quick all weekend, and pole position gives me a solid base for tomorrow's race. I did a very good lap: the car was under-steering a bit too much at low speed, but it was very stable in the high-speed corners. I am happy to be on pole, but the main job is still to come. But obviously, from the front row, I will be racing for the win." He said. "...it was a good lap. This morning we suffered a little bit with the set-up. I had to push a little bit more to find a better line in the chicane which is very complicated here. At the end, the qualifying laps were fine. I had two or three big moments in turn eight, I think. I braked a little bit too late, but at the end, I didn't lose too much time and to be on pole here for the home Grand Prix for the team is really nice and a good feeling at the moment. But we have to wait and see how the race is tomorrow."

Fernando Alonso has experienced some terrible luck this year and he hopes this can be a turning point:

"..I believe so because at Monaco I had very bad luck, Nurburgring I had a steering problem, and in Canada and Indy I retired with two mechanical problems so I'm sure that here the luck will come back and hopefully tomorrow we will finish the race." Said Alonso at the press conference after his pole.

Executive Director of Engineering, Pat Symonds, was also quite sattisfied with the result of his drivers:

"In spite of yesterday's rain, the cars have been reasonably well-balanced from the start, which meant that we could concentrate more on fine-tuning this afternoon. This work has resulted in a satisfactory qualifying position: Fernando's lap was excellent, and Jarno also performed extremely well. What's more, this afternoon demonstrated exactly how exciting the current qualifying format can be and of course, we still have to learn exactly what strategy choices our rivals have made." He said.

Denis Chevrier, Engine Operations Manager, also commented on the good lap:

"We have achieved an extremely good result today, especially as we have taken pole in front of 'our' fans here in France. Yesterday, we couldn't be sure exactly how competitive we were, but a busy morning allowed us to confirm our strong form at Magny-Cours this year. Fernando completed a very good lap, while Jarno was unlucky to miss second by so small a margin: he is just one tenth of a second from the front row. Looking to tomorrow, I think we have what it takes to run a strong race, and we can justifiably hope to get two cars on the podium." He added.

Not the best of laps by Jarno Trulli who made a couple of mistakes that costed him time and robbed him of the chance of sharing the front row:

"I made a few small mistakes on my lap, which is why I am fifth. I locked a wheel at turn 13, and the car had a bit too much oversteer at high speed. However, I am pretty pleased with how today went, and from fifth, I can fight for the podium with the strategy we have chosen." Said Trulli.