Renault: “reliability is not at the expected level”

The men of Red Bull looked gloomy at the end of the Australian GP. Only two of the four cars finished the race with Daniel Ricciardo in sixth position and Carlos Sainz Jr in ninth place. If Daniil Kvyat's withdrawal is due to a gearbox problem, the abandonment of Max Verstappen was caused by “a technical problem” with smoke escaping from the Toro Rosso.

“From the start of the weekend, we had to deal with a certain number of technical problems, both at Red Bull and at Toro Rosso. First of all, reliability is not at the expected level since Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen experienced problems with their internal combustion engines », explained Rémi Taffin, director of operations.

“The main concern lies with the flexibility of the engine which prevented the drivers from feeling completely comfortable behind the wheel, and from being able to fully attack the turns. These mapping problems have naturally penalized the times and so we cost big points this week-end ", recognized the engineer Viruses-Châtillon.

Discover the analysis of the Australian Grand Prix carried out by our special correspondents in issue 2003 of AUTOhebdo, available from tomorrow evening in digital version on all platforms, and from Wednesday on newsstands.