Nick Heidfeld has highlighted qualifying as a key area where Renault needs to improve in order to be more competitive.
Although the team already has two podiums this season, Heidfeld and team-mate Vitaly Petrov only qualified ninth and seventh respectively at the last race in Turkey. Heidfeld said that the team should look to maximise its potential on the Saturday, saying that they are helped by the fact that the R31 is good at looking after the rapidly degrading Pirelli tyres.
"If we have stronger qualifying sessions, we'll definitely give ourselves a good chance each Sunday," he said. "This is my main focus now.
With these new Pirelli tyres, there is not too much you can do to limit the impact of degradation from a driver point of view. However, the good thing is the R31 is quite gentle on its tyres compared to the other cars, which is a real positive for us. I think that through good general usage of the car the driver can help the situation, but what is more important is how the car is set-up. If the car is prepared well beforehand then it can put us in a good position."
Heidfeld also said that simulator work would play less of a part in the build-up to the race in Barcelona as all of the teams already have plenty of data from pre-season testing at the circuit.
"We will get into the swing of things quickly because the whole team knows the circuit well, and teams using a simulator won't have such an advantage here."
Looking ahead to the race, Heidfeld said his aim was to continue to take the fight to Ferrari and Mercedes.
"Nico [Rosberg] is only a point behind me now and Mercedes have improved a lot over the last two races. However, we scored as many points as they did in Turkey so we can stay clear of them. The Ferraris are not far away - Felipe [Massa] has finished behind me in a couple of races and he is not many points ahead so my aim is to start challenging him in the standings very soon."
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