Back in April, Renault's team principal Eric Boullier admitted that his team was reconsidering not running the F-duct, which gives the cars on which it is fitted on a close to 8mph advantage in straight line. Since the majority of the big teams have already debuted preliminary or final verions of this device, the Enstone based team finally realized that this is a must in order to keep in touch with the leading pack.
“I can tell you that the F-duct will be tested soon. We are going to use it soon but we want to make sure it works 100 per cent before we put it into a race,” said Boullier in an interview with France's Auto Hebdo.
The fact that Renault is working flat out to get their F-duct done as soon as possible is also a consequence of the fact that the Canadian Grand Prix is waiting around the corner in less than two weeks time. The Circuit Gilles Villeneuve is well known for his long high-speed straights (especially the one leading to the last chicane of the circuit), and having F-duct will likely translate into great lap times in both qualifying and race.
As a matter of fact, most pundits and F1 paddock insiders believe the upcoming race in Canada will be the site where McLaren will strengthen their position in the overall classification, as their F-duct is currently the most efficient one (they were the first to debut it, in Australia). So everybody will likely work until the eleventh hour to develop their F-duct for a better shot in Montreal.
From the already established teams, only Scuderia Toro Rosso decided not to implement such a device on their 2010 car – F-duct will be illegal in 2011 – while Lotus, Virgin and HRT obviously don't have the funds to choose that development path for the F-duct.
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