Believed to have made little difference on track – except for the incredible start of Fernando Alonso at Sepang – the technology was considered useless on low-to-medium speed circuit. Monza was to become the track were Renault was going to return to using KERS in the series. Symonds revealed, however, that Renault have already began reassessing the technology for the Istanbul round.
He also confirmed not using the unit in Spain and Monaco was related to the characteristics of the two tracks, believed to have made KERS deployment both inefficient and detrimental to the car (influencing its balance in the race).
“We obviously made a fundamental decision not to attempt to run it in Spain, and a decision not to run it in Monaco. I think we will reassess Turkey, because what we have been doing in the last few weeks is getting all the data together and just trying to see where our simulations need improving. So we need to make a decision on Turkey in the next two weeks - not before that,” said Symonds in an interview with Autosport.
In addition, the Renault engineer admitted he was puzzled by the decision of both Ferrari and McLaren to use KERS in Monaco, as it's common sense the unit would serve for nothing on the streets of Monte Carlo – a circuit dominated by slow-speed corners and few/short straight lines.
“To me it is just no way for Monaco. I could be quite rude, but I can't think who would think it is good. If you think about it in simple terms, Monaco is not a power circuit so you will not get the advantage anyway. You cannot get the power down there, and you can only use KERS when you are not traction limited, and you are traction limited for a very long time at Monaco. It is definitely not on our radar,” added Symonds for the aforementioned source.
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