Serenity at Renault

At the end of the 800 laps completed during the last session of winter testing in Barcelona, ​​Spain, Power Units Renault will have only experienced one difficult day last Sunday, with a recalcitrant ERS on the Red Bull de Daniel Ricciardo and a problem on the internal combustion engine for Max Verstappen in Toro Rosso. Damages which, however, do not worry the Losange.

“At the end of the winter tests, we are satisfied to have been able to carry out almost our entire work program, starting with as much running as possible to achieve optimal reliability, indicated Rémi Taffin, Director of Operations. Objective n°1 was to cover the greatest number of kilometers and one of our propellers has covered a complete cycle of five Grands Prix between Barcelona I and II. We are confident that we have resolved the issues with the specification that will be used in Melbourne. In terms of performance, we would have liked to have had a little more time but were aware of the situation from the start following our particularly aggressive development choices. We therefore still have potential to extract from here in Melbourne. »

The single-seaters equipped with the tricolor Power Units were able to cover a total of 9800 km throughout the winter. “Everyone seems reliable and we will therefore have to rely on performance to get big points in Australia. If it still remains difficult to really situate ourselves on this level, we approach the first meeting of the season with serenity." concluded Cyril Abiteboul, the Managing Director of Renault Sport F1.

Find our report on the Barcelona tests in issue 2001 of AUTOhebdo, already available in digital version and on newsstands.