Renault confident of more F1 power and better reliability

A recent run of stoppages – including several that have left Max Verstappen particularly frustrated – has put the French car manufacturer under the spotlight after a campaign where reliability has been a particular issue.

But with the recent engine failures being linked to older specification parts that were introduced before Renault had answers to its issues, more positive news from its dyno in recent days has left it upbeat for when new specification parts will come on board.

“We can affirm that from Canada to Baku, we touched on the level of reliability that we wanted to have,” Renault's Remi Taffin told Motorsport.com. “So anything we want to bring into the game now is what we want to have – and has been 5000km proved. 

“Obviously we still have to play with the parts that we introduced earlier in the year, so that is why sometimes we still have a few bits and pieces, glitches and gremlins. But that is how we have to work and we have to make sure that we can move on.”

Staying within limits

Renault wants to ensure that its teams stay within the four-engine limit for the season, which is why it only plans to introduce the next round of engines around the time of the British or Hungarian Grands Prix.

Taffin added: “It is all about reliability, which has obviously taken us two months more than we would have liked. But at least now we can benefit from that and in Baku we could get more performance out of the engine, which was good for this kind of track.”

Renault introduced new engine modes and settings at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix for its works and customer teams – which delivered a step forward of around two-tenths of a second per lap.

Taffin believes that even without any major hardware changes, further steps can be expected over the remainder of 2017 – prior to a bigger jump for next season.

“If you have reliability problems and can solve them, then you can actually push hard on the part, so that is why you have these kind of steps,” he explained.

“If you are on the back foot and have to turn things down electronically, then you can move things up quite easily when you have the reliability back. That is what we did [in Baku] - and it sometimes feels like it is a bit of magic stuff. 

“You don’t need to change big things in the engine hardware to make big steps these days.”

Taffin has faith that more performance will come over the remainder of the campaign, thanks to software settings, improved fuel and maybe even hardware changes planned for 2018 if they prove reliable enough.

“The second part of the season we will be looking to build on the right level of reliability to take the most out of the engine,” he said. “That also means the most out of the powerunit, so we can get more electrical energy out of the energy store and so on and so forth. 

“We will see if we can bring some of the [update] stuff forward. We will have some new fuel or lubricants which will help and, if we have some new bits and pieces that we have left aside from the start of the season, we will bring them.

“There is still a big focus in trying to follow our road map and make sure that next year’s engine is there. And as it is an engine that is close to this one, it is easier to transfer ideas from one to the other.”

Hurt by poor reliability

Taffin is clear that the search to solve reliability issues in the early part of the year did hinder its progress in closing the performance gap to Mercedes and Ferrari.

“When we struggled with reliability over the winter, it was not only on track, you also struggle on the dyno,” he said. “So you are slowing down the progress. Even if you have very good CFD correlation, at one point you have to run them. That is what we have been hurt by. 

“As soon as we got to around race five, we could actually put more hours onto our engine and more dyno work: that is what we have got here [in Baku with the update].”

Renault still hopes to run the original 2017 spec MGU-K later this year, having been forced to revert to the heavier 2016 model from the start of the season because of reliability worries.

“It was not let’s say a priority to have it back in the car as quickly as possible because obviously we had a fix that we used from race one onwards,” he said.

“We still have the objective to run it this year. We have a version that is running on the dyno so if you look at the dyno, it is only the 2017 MGU-K that is running. It is more about to have the right slot where we will fit that back in.”