Renault has admitted it is taking a risk with its bold new exhaust design, but is confident it will pay off.
On Tuesday the Renault R31 hit the track for the first time and it soon became obvious that the exhausts were exiting from the front of the sidepods, rather than the conventional position at the rear. While the designs are closely guarded by the team, it is believed the idea is aimed at maximising the effect of the blown diffuser, a concept that became standard on the front-running cars last year.
However, the R31 got off to a fairly unremarkable start during the first day of testing, completing just 28 laps and setting the eighth fastest time. Nevertheless, team principal Eric Boullier is confident the car will come good and said the first day was "successful because the first day is always a glitch-fixing day".
In an interview with ESPNF1, he added: "I'm not going to talk too much about it, I will let our competitors find out by themselves. Yes, we have decided to go a little bit brave in this design and this area to make the car a bit different."
When asked if it was a risk, Boullier replied: "Of course." But when asked if he was comfortable with the risk, he said: "Yes completely. We have to be. If you are too conservative you will stay at the back of the queue and we do not want to spend our time copying the others. If you want to be at the front you have to be creative and you also need to bring this creativeness in the team spirit.
"You need to reassure people by saying: 'Let's try something that you believe strongly will perform. Let's try it and if it doesn't work we will back you up'. That's a big change because then people can take some risks.
He said the R31 has the potential to turn Renault from a team that was taking the odd podium finish last year, to one that is challenging for wins.
"We prefer to have a car today that is capable of fighting for pole position and we need to this rather than fighting for the top ten in qualifying and the races. Being opportunistic is good to maybe score some podiums, but what we definitely want is to be a front runner."
He said the R31's exhaust design could open up a new avenue of development this season and is confident Renault is in a position to take full advantage of its potential.
"We have clearly taken a technical choice that could open the door to some further development or not. But we believe a lot in the people that are working for us, we will back them up definitely, and I think this is good as well for F1."
Laurence Edmondson is an assistant editor on ESPNF1
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