Q and A with Renault’s Fabrice Lom

Q. Fabrice, what is your assessment of the start to the season made by Renault's partner team Red Bull Racing?

Fabrice Lom, Principal Engineer, Red Bull Racing Trackside Engine Support: I am feeling very optimistic about our partnership. I think it has been an intense start to the season for all the team: everything is brand new, and needs to be put into place. That has required Herculean efforts from the team, but the start to the season has been positive, and our results are encouraging.

We know we have a promising package, and even though there are still areas that need working on, we can see we are making progress all the time – and we believe the package has real potential.

Q. You are preparing for the most unusual race on the entire calendar: Monaco. What demands does this place on the engine?

FL: Monaco isn't generally known as an engine circuit, but there are still some important factors to take into account when tuning the V8's behavior. It must be as smooth as possible; there are a lot of bumps, which means a real risk of over-revving, so everything must be set up to ensure gear changes happen at the right time.

Prior to 2007, our worry was about not exceeding the physical capabilities of the engine with too many revs; this year, we will be adapting to the slightly different challenge of ensuring we do not exceed the rev limit of 19,000 rpm.

Q. You prepared for the race at Paul Ricard last week…

FL: Yes. The team's main focus was on chassis testing. On the engine side, we were paying attention to the engine's behavior with very closely-spaced gear ratios, particularly in second and third gears; to the driver's feeling about the engine characteristics; and to cooling, which is a factor that can never be neglected in the Principality. Renault PR