Renault can continue to challenge the big teams in Malaysia says team principal Eric Boullier.
The team are hoping to repeat their success at the season opening race in Australia, in which Vitaly Petrov finished on the podium.
The Russian managed to fend off both Ferrari’s, a Red Bull in the form of Mark Webber, and the McLaren of Jenson Button as he drove to third place in the R31.
Boullier is confident the team can continue to finish ahead of the big three at this weekend’s grand prix.
“We were in a good position in Australia and I can see us continuing to fight with the big teams,” he admitted.
Though he conceded the team would need to match their development pace of 2010 to be able to continue the attack.
“I remain fully confident the team can repeat the performance of last year,” he said. “We proved in 2010 that we had the ability to develop the car at a very high level and I see no reason why we cannot do the same this year, especially since we’ve worked on improving our processes and our production capacity.”
The team will be bringing a ‘moderate upgrade package’ to the Sepang circuit, which the teams technical director, James Allison, believes could bring several tenths to the car, though he was coy on the exact details.
“Well, I don’t want to be too specific – you know how paranoid we engineers are in this business,” he said, “but I can say that we will bring a moderate upgrade package to Malaysia worth several tenths of a second.
“We will be making changes to the front and rear wing in addition to several items of bodywork.”
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