Renault first to confirm KERS for Australian GP

Renault is the first team to commit to using a KERS system at next weekend's Australian grand prix.

"We will run it in Australia, I'm sure of that already," engineering boss Pat Symonds told GP Week.

It is believed that Ferrari, McLaren and BMW are similarly advanced with the new energy re-use technology, but have not yet decided whether to deploy their respective systems at Albert Park.

European publications report that BMW will make its decision this week. "I can not anticipate the outcome," technical director Willy Rampf told the Swiss newspaper Blick.

The other teams, including Toyota, Williams, the Red Bull teams and Force India, have already decided to commence the season without KERS.

Brawn, meanwhile, has not even tested the technology. "With the time we have had available, quite frankly, we have not considered KERS," team head Ross Brawn said.

Symonds, however, is comfortable with Renault's so-far unique decision to fit the device at Albert Park despite the concerns about compromising weight distribution, tyre wear and safety.

"We believe obviously that it's a positive performance advantage otherwise we wouldn't be running it," he insisted.

He revealed that, despite earlier concerns, Renault's KERS system is also reliable.

"Prior to Christmas I would have said there was very little chance of us running it in Australia, and I really couldn't have put a date on when we were going to run it, but over Christmas the major problems were solved very quickly one after the other in succession.

"And since we've had it on the car we've really had very little problem with it," added Symonds.