Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsRenault

Illien hopes to show early Renault progress

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Mario Illien believes clear progress can be made with Renault's power unit from an early stage in 2016.

Renault endured a frustrating 2015 as reliability issues prevented the engine manufacturer from improving performance, but has since opted to return as a full constructor this year. Part of a change in its partnership with Red Bull has seen its power units for the four-time constructors' champions badged as Tag Heuer, while Illien will continue to be involved as part of an association between Renault and Ilmor.

Asked if he has to start from scratch with Renault due to its deficit last year, Illien told Auto Motor und Sport: "No, it's not so bad.

"This will be increased gradually. I hope that we will already show progress early in the season."

Ilmor's ideas in 2015 were never used by Renault, but Illien sees a different approach this year, saying: "We will surely use [some of the ideas] and integrate them gradually into the engine.

"With the 32 tokens could change quite a lot, but time does not allow it. We now need to see, in cooperation with Renault, what is possible in the limited time [before the start of the season]."

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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.