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Renault looking to get ahead of Mercedes

Robert Kubica has had two strong races in the Renault © Getty Images

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Renault technical director James Allison believes his team can start to challenge Mercedes in the coming races, after strong results at the last two grand prix.

Renault has tended to be off the pace of Red Bull, Ferrari, McLaren and Mercedes in qualifying, but made the most of mixed weather conditions in Australia and Malaysia to help Robert Kubica deliver second and fourth place finishes.

When asked if Renault can challenge Mercedes, the slowest of the top four, on a permanent basis, Allison said: "I think we can because at the moment they're only just ahead of us on qualifying pace, whereas we seemed to have the edge on race pace in Malaysia. We will have more updates in China, including a new floor and an alternative front wing. Although this might not be enough to get ahead of Mercedes in qualifying trim, it should move us closer to their tail. And if we can jump ahead of them at the start of a race, I'm confident we have the pace to stay ahead.

"We have made no secret of our intention to develop our car aggressively during 2010. Aggressive development means having effective ideas and getting them to the track as fast as possible. Our current rate of aerodynamic development is at an all-time high; it's at least double that of last year. The factory is also pulling out all the stops to get our ideas to the car in around half the time compared with last year."

Star driver Kubica is also happy with the team's progress and insists the team hasn't lucked in to its recent run of form.

"It's great to see the team pushing so hard and bringing new parts for each race but, as a driver, it's difficult to judge how much the car has improved when you are driving on different circuits each week, and in different weather conditions. For example, Sepang is a totally different circuit to Melbourne and requires different characteristics from the car. But we know from the data that the car is getting better and better.

"Most of the teams are very close together in terms of performance with Red Bull, McLaren and Ferrari as the top three teams. We are just behind them along with Mercedes, and then you have a close fight between Force India, Williams and Toro Rosso. So it's very tight and we need to keep pushing to get closer to the front and to maintain the advantage over the teams behind us."

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