By role
September 24 2004

Renault F1 Managing Director, Flavio Briatore, accused today on the Official Press Conference ahead of the Chinese Grand Prix Italian driver Jarno Trulli of not making enough of an effort to keep second place on the championship for his team. Renault came to an agreement last week with Jarno Trulli to terminate his contract and liberate the Italian of his duties at the French squad. The following day Trulli was announced as racing driver for Toyota for 2005 and 2006 and started to test for his new team.

When asked about the reasons of the change and the hiring of Jacques Villeneuve Briatore was quite clear:

“I needed to have something in the team (...). When you're in the same situation as I am in for the last four races, you have 800 people in the team, you are pushing everybody very hard to make the pieces for both cars, to make sure the car is competitive, and afterwards you see one driver making a big effort and one driver making less effort. It was very very difficult for the team, and I needed to do something. I believe what I've done is something sensible, it was my only opportunity. I talked to Jacques and he looked like he was together. He wanted to race and was very motivated to race against BAR anyway, so this was something more, a plus and it looked good. If you tell me tomorrow what he's doing on Sunday… he will make the car finish in the points. This is what I need from Jacques, to motivate the team, motivate Fernando and this is what I'm trying to do, to have a point, to finish second in the championship. And next year? I've already signed Fisichella. It was very difficult to sign both drivers.” He said.

Jarno Trulli had complaint about the team hampering the performance of his car since he took the decision to switch to Toyota.