McLaren boss Ron Dennis doubts the Renault team will challenge his own squad in this year's Championship, and claimed the French cars were only mobile chicanes during the Brazilian Grand Prix. Karl Ludvigsen does not agree with Dennis, and, apart from their paint scheme, thinks that things are looking good for Renault

Pardon my cod French, but that's my reaction to Ron Dennis's description of the Renaults as 'mobile chicanes' in Brazil. Some chicanes! Ron's drivers had their hands full coping with the speed of the Renaults. Okay, his McLarens were a tad quicker in free air, but not so much so that the R202s had to be regarded as blatant blockages. They were also being driven by some talented pilots.

So far this season we haven't had a good look at what Renault can do. Both cars were out early in Australia and one was lost at the outset in Malaysia. This means that the Renault outfit hasn't had the benefit of long runs under race conditions to perfect its performance, its reliability, its pitwork and its strategy. Last weekend was different. It looked for a while as if they'd get two cars to the finish in the points at Brazil until Jarno Trulli's V10 decided it was done for the day.

Last week, Graham Holliday drew our attention to the rise of Renault. His assessment was confirmed by qualifying in Brazil. The top eight places were taken by the top four teams - BMW-Williams, Ferrari, McLaren-Mercedes and...ta-daa!...Renault. The 'French' racers were never under threat, joining an elite group of the quickest cars clustered with times less than a second apart. They acted as if they belonged there, and the race proved that they did.

My first impression was that this was a false dawn, their performance flattered by the way the Michelins were working on the Interlagos track. With six of the eight top qualifiers on Michelins, this seemed likely. The French tyres were making the 'French' cars look good. But then I looked at the Sector 3 times. As I've pointed out before, the long, hard haul up the hill from 65-mph Turn 12 to the finish line at Interlagos is the most telling indicator of usable horsepower that we have during the entire season. Except for entry speed, cornering has nothing to do with it. And in Sector 3 the Renaults were right in there with their top-eight rivals. So I reckon there is much more to Renault's improved form than a happy choice of tyre supplier.

That's not the end of the story, says Renault's engine designer Jean Jacques His. He expects to have three or four upgrades during the season for his RS22 engine. His shrugs off any suggestion that his wide-angle V10 could be lacking in torsional stiffness, something amateur engineers have intimated. Both last year's B201 and this year's R202 do use bracing struts in the gearbox area, but Mike Gascoyne swears that this is simply an efficient way of providing the necessary beam stiffness.

Gascoyne says that "the R202 is an evolution of last year's car, but one in which every part has been changed." This is another way of saying that its Benetton DNA is still making a contribution to this 'French' car. I keep putting that word in quotation marks because it's no secret that the cars are designed and built at Enstone in England and powered by engines coming from Renault Sport at Viry Chatillon near Paris. The R202 is the only Renault car produced in the United Kingdom.

With Renault now the owner of this amalgamation, it flaunted the slogan '100% Renault' at its new car's elaborate Paris launch. I think we get the point; it's trying to rub in the fact that it completely owns and controls all the elements of the team. It's a step beyond Renault's previous role as an engine supplier and reaches back to the years when it produced both the chassis and the turbocharged V-6 engines. But I think fabulous Flav Briatore is stretching things much too far when he grumbles that Renault should be regarded as a brand-new team this year, like Toyota, and should thus be treated with the same consideration as a rank newcomer. He can't erase the considerable and often successful heredity of Benetton and, before that, Toleman.

The team's Frenchness is indisputable. The graphics for the Formula One campaign and for Renault Sports were created by a new group set up by former jet-interior designer Carole Andrieux-Favart, under the direction of Renault's styling chief Patrick le Quément. Andrieux-Favart is otherwise responsible for Renault's interior design, so I suppose she can't be blamed for the paint job on the R202. Renault's aim must be to attract the attention of kindergarten kids, because the car's graphics have all the subtlety of a Tonka toy. Simplicity is one thing, but crudeness - as on the décor of the Renaults - is another.

While Renault was away, of course, Eddie Jordan grabbed its corporate yellow colors. I'm sure the French outfit would like to regain exclusive use of that distinctive hue. Eddie would certainly be willing to relinquish his yellow for appropriate compensation. Jordan's always been willing to do a deal. Maybe he could use the extra cash to avoid having his cars targeted next by Ron Dennis as 'mobile chicanes'.