Petrov wants answers

Vitaly Petrov reflects on a difficult race to tenth © Sutton Images

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Vitaly Petrov has called on his Renault team to understand why the likes of Sauber and Force India are finishing ahead of it after he struggled to tenth at the German Grand Prix.

After a podium at the first race of the season, points have been harder to come by for Petrov with just one top ten finish from the last three races. At the Nurburging he started ninth but had to fight hard to stay in the top ten while Adrian Sutil and Kamui Kobayashi used two stop strategies to finish ahead of him.

"Well, it's another point gained today, but really we need to analyse exactly why we lost positions out there, and why we didn't come in to the pits earlier to fight with the group in front," he said.

"The start was good and I had some decent battles, including with Jenson [Button] and Michael [Schumacher], but the main thing is we need to look at why the likes of Sauber and Force India are finishing higher than us, and correct it as soon as possible. We must now concentrate on Hungary and getting some good points there before the summer break."

After Nick Heidfeld crashed out of the race trying to pass Sebastien Buemi's Toro Rosso, Renault team principal Eric Boullier admitted the result had not lived up to expectations.

"Obviously this is a disappointing day for us," he said. "We had a reasonable qualifying yesterday, which was definitely a step forward from Silverstone, and we were looking to launch a strong assault on the points today from P9 and P11.

"Firstly, Nick was unlucky; after falling back to 22nd position he was ploughing his way through the field and, by the time he moved into 16th place, he was trying to overtake Sebastien but ran out of room and went off-track which cut his race short.

"Vitaly also had a tough race but stuck it out with a determined drive to come home in P10. We are looking to finish much stronger than we did today but, having said that, one point is better than none and we must now look at how we improve in time for Budapest."

Technical director James Allison said the next major upgrade would come after the summer break.

"A disappointing race with Nick out early after a start which meant a very difficult race in any case and Vitaly scoring a point but achieving less than we thought possible and hoped for," Allison said. "It was not really where we hoped to be at the end of the weekend so we have to keep our noses to the grindstone and make the car quicker as that's what will bring the points. There are a couple of minor revisions to the R31 for Budapest but we have greater changes for the races which follow."

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