Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsRed Bull Racing

Newey wary of Renault's budget limitations

40

Adrian Newey believes Renault could drop further away from Mercedes and Ferrari as a result of a lack of budget.

The Red Bull designer has warned there is likely to be a "spending frenzy" as a result of restrictions on power unit development being lifted from 2017 onwards. While he is keen to praise Renault for its approach to providing all of its customers with identical engines and software, Newey believes the amount of money being spent by other manufacturers will prevent Renault from closing the performance gap.

"They have always given the same power units in every sense of the word, including software, to their customer teams as their works teams," Newey told Reuters at the Zoom charity auction.

"Of course it’s an option for Red Bull and it’s an option for Renault (to continue together). The problem of course is that if Renault are not able to compete with the spend and development race then we are put in a position where neither they nor us can be fully competitive."

And rather than the end of the token system allowing Renault and Honda to catch up more quickly, Newey expects there to be plenty of room for development for all power unit manufacturers in the coming years.

"These engines are still relatively infant technology. We have already seen the steps that can be made...there’s no reason to suspect they’ve suddenly reached a plateau."

The men behind the Renault F1 return

Who are the new Renault F1 juniors?

Key dates for the 2016 F1 season

Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter

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.