Renault green-lights KERS for Aussie GP
"We will run it in Australia, I'm sure of that already," engineering boss Pat Symonds told GP Week.
It is believed that Ferrari, McLaren and BMW are similarly advanced with the new energy re-use technology, but have not yet decided whether to deploy their respective systems at Albert Park.
European publications report that BMW will make its decision this week. "I can not anticipate the outcome," technical director Willy Rampf told the Swiss newspaper Blick.
The other teams, including Toyota, Williams, the Red Bull teams and Force India, have already decided to commence the season without KERS.
Brawn, meanwhile, has not even tested the technology. "With the time we have had available, quite frankly, we have not considered KERS," team head Ross Brawn said.
Symonds, however, is comfortable with Renault's so-far unique decision to fit the device at Albert Park despite the concerns about compromising weight distribution, tire wear and safety.
"We believe obviously that it's a positive performance advantage otherwise we wouldn't be running it," he insisted.
He revealed that, despite earlier concerns, Renault's KERS system is also reliable.
"Prior to Christmas I would have said there was very little chance of us running it in Australia, and I really couldn't have put a date on when we were going to run it, but over Christmas the major problems were solved very quickly one after the other in succession.
"And since we've had it on the car we've really had very little problem with it," added Symonds.
03/17/09 The ING Renault F1 Team has given its Kinetic Energy Recovery System the green light to run at the upcoming Australian Grand Prix. By using KERS at Melbourne, the French outfit remains a minority as six teams already confirmed that they would not use the system 'Down Under'.
Williams, Toyota, Scuderia Toro Rosso, Red Bull Racing, Force India F1 and Brawn GP will all head to Melbourne without the technology.
Renault, however, admitted early in winter testing that it was surprised about how well their KERS system was running and this after a skeptical attitude in the beginning. Due to the positive test sessions with the technology, the French outfit decided to use it at the first race of the season.
For an overview of the KERS devices in use and how far along the teams are in their development cycle, please read "tackling KERS in Formula One".