Renault remains modest before the Spanish GP

Kevin Magnussen won the first points of the season for Renault Sport F1 Team at the Russian Grand Prix finishing in seventh place. This result brought renewed motivation to the French team in the midst of a reconstruction phase following the takeover of Lotus at the end of last year.

If this first top ten has taken a weight off the team, they remain aware that such results cannot be reproduced every weekend.

“We recognize that it took a combination of circumstances and that it will be hard to do it again in Spain”, commented Cyril Abiteboul, the general director of Renault Sport Racing. “However, Barcelona marks the start of our development program and we will see new developments arriving in the race as well as others during the tests that will follow. This round will serve as a benchmark: we are coming out of the recovery period after the takeover and it will be the first race for “our” team. The start will be modest, but I am convinced that we will gain momentum over time. »

Frédéric Vasseur, the competition director, shares this reservation. “It’s no secret that we still have a lot of work to do. This will be the case all year round. We had a good weekend in Russia, where the entire team worked hard to score our first points of the season…. In Russia, the car didn't suddenly gain a huge amount of performance. Rather, it is the team, and especially Kevin (Magnussen), who was able to extract the maximum from it while taking advantage of favorable external circumstances. Not every race will work in our favor this way, but we always want to achieve the maximum possible while improving our maximum potential itself. »

The start of the European season traditionally marking an important stage in the development of single-seaters, Renault has developed several new features on the RS 16 which will be tested this weekend at the Spanish Grand Prix.

“We will have a new rear wing and changes to the front wing”, indicated Nick Chester, the technical director of the chassis part. “We will then have a lot of things to try during testing: new suspension, new aerodynamic developments on different parts of the RS16, cooling modules while evaluating the new powertrain specification. Our two days should be busy. »