Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsRenault

Renault set to play catch-up in 2016 - Chester

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Renault chassis technical director Nick Chester believes the team will be playing catch-up during 2016 as it works to improve its infrastructure.

Last year saw Lotus facing a number of financial difficulties and the team lost personnel as a result, with Bob Bell highlighting the need to recruit aerodynamicists following the takeover from Renault. Chester agrees the focus will be on increasing the strength of the team itself before Renault can start to use that depth to improve the car.

“The technical challenges for 2016 are partly rebuilding the team - so getting strength back in the areas where we were weak - and then improving what is hopefully a reasonable baseline car, improving it through the year and developing our strengths,” Chester said.

“Then as we get in to 2017 the regulations are a huge change and that’s a car we want to start early and look at all the concepts that we might want to bring to 2017.”

While aware 2016 is likely to be a difficult year, Chester says motivation will remain high due to the ability to develop at a much quicker rate than in recent years.

“I think the development potential with Renault is much stronger. We’ve got much better resources and as we rebuild the team that’s something that is going to grow and grow.”

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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.