Renault Sport F1 boss Cyril Abiteboul is reluctant to provide a deadline on the French manufacturer's Formula 1 future in spite of the prospect of its contracts with Red Bull and Toro Rosso expiring in a little over 18 months.
" Yeah, we have contracts that run with those two gentlemen until the end of 2016," Abiteboul said in yesterday's team principal's press conference. " I guess the deadline is 31st December 2016. No, joke apart. We have no deadline, no rush. I think right now the deadline and the big target is to get engine under control, both from reliability and performance perspectives."
Abiteboul indeed stressed the importance of restoring the Renault power unit's performance and reliability in view of what has been a disastrous first part of the season
"Once this is done we can secure some longer-term stuff. And I’m sure right now this is a concern for our customer – will we be capable of dealing with the regulation, with dealing with the trouble that we have right now? So, I think this is a concern for them, this is a concern also for us, so this is what we have to address in priority before thinking about anything else."
The Frenchman also voiced his regrets about last week's Strategy Group's decision not to extend the allocation of engines to five units this season.
"Obviously I regret it, because that’s something that would have facilitated a bit the situation of our two customer teams given the different reliability issues we’ve had so far this season. Having said that, we knew the rules, it’s four engines for everyone, so that’s what we have to comply with. The only comment I would make is that we don’t that as something that is a huge penalty."
"I know there is a lot of frustration but ten places penalty – maybe I should not say that because maybe the FIA will make it worse in the future – but ten places penalty in tracks when you can overtake, assuming you have the power, the right set-up and so on, basically a car that out of place at the start can quite easily make it during the race, which are long races. So, I’m sorry for my customer teams but I don’t think it’s a big game changer to the championship."
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