Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsRenault

Renault ‘had to be uncompromising’ - Taffin

Renault’s Remi Taffin says the power unit manufacturer “had to be uncompromising” to try and close the gap to Mercedes.

2014 saw Renault start the year with an uncompetitive power unit which was hampered further by reliability issues. There was a change in organisation throughout the season - with Cyril Abiteboul returning having been team principal at Caterham - and Taffin has taken on the role of director of operations. With Mercedes dominating last year, Taffin said tough decision had to be made in order to ensure Renault has the best possible chance of catching up in 2015.

“We’ve wiped the slate clean this year and start off on a new, solid footing,” Taffin told F1i during an exclusive interview. “We’ve changed our methods and trackside organisation by adding a support leader in each team. The person will oversee the overall engine performance while two other technicians will run the cars.

“In order to close the gap, we had to be uncompromising, review everything that had not worked last year, and make sure to reach better efficiency in 2015.

“In terms of design, we’ve focused our efforts on the V6 internal combustion engine to make it more efficient, as well as the ERS to strengthen reliability. We’d already improved our level of performance at the end of last year, so our 2015 power unit is more an evolution than a revolution. Indeed, performance gains can mainly be found in the details.”

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.