Renault still chasing fourth

Regie looking to close 10-point gap to Toyota

Last updated: 11th July 2008

fernando alonso renault 6/7/2008

Alonso: bad decision

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Renault's Steve Nielsen is confident the team can finish fourth in the Constructors' Championship despite their slump in results.

While rivals Toyota and Red Bull have both achieved a podium finish this season, Renault have struggled to break into the top three, either due to a lack of pace or tactical errors.

Their best result to date remains Fernando Alonso's fourth in the season-opening Australian Grand Prix.

As a result, the team are currently floundering at the back of the midfield battle in seventh place, 10 points behind fourth-placed Toyota.

"Our target has to be to finish fourth this season, and it's only 10 points at the moment," sporting director Nielsen told Renault's official podcast.

"If you couple that with our missed opportunities it makes it even more galling that we could be sat in fourth place now.

"We don't aim for fourth but at the moment with our level of competitiveness that's our target.

"There is everything to play for in the second half of the season and we've got to get those points finishes and make sure we finish fourth."

Mistakes

Nielsen also conceded that Renault needed to cut out mistakes if they hope to finish the Championship in fourth place.

Alonso was running fourth in Sunday's wet British Grand Prix before his opening pit stop.

The team then elected to keep him on the same set of intermediate tyres - a decision which backfired when rain again started to fall at Silverstone.

Alonso had to pit again just eight laps later and eventually came home in sixth place.

"I think we all feel that there have been missed opportunities; some of those have been through driver errors and a couple of those have been through the team's error," Nielsen added.

"I think if we could redo the first half of the season I'm sure the drivers and the team might do some things differently.

"All we can do is try and learn from that for the second part of the season."