The FOZ wrote:For the longest time, Flavio Briatore was following the engine freeze to the letter, and to the spirit of the freeze...I'm sure Alonso was able to convince him to reverse his position on the matter.
So yes, their engine development lagged for a good chunk of the season, but they've clearly made things more "reliable" lately. Thing about Alonso is, he's going to race hard no matter what, so hir results are a pretty good indicator of how the car is performing on a given day
I don't think that Flavio is all that scrupulous when it comes to the spirit of the rules. I don't mean he is worser than he is; there's just a very good reason to stop development of the engine - you can save some money and use it for something else. Renault was probably overoptimistic on the cost/yield estimation of what they can save on engine and what saved money would gain them on say aero or suspension.
Anyway it's good to see Renault back again, I just hope their effort won't hurt them next season!
side effect of increasing HP. When a team makes these changes are made they are sent round to all the teams and they all just approve the change - and then see if they can do something similar to their engine. Apparently Renault weren't really catching on to this until the late part of this season...