Renault green-lights power unit upgrade for Monaco

Renault's revised power unit which was put through its paces in Barcelona this week has been given the all clear for a Monaco debut by the French manufacturer's engineers.

There will only be one unit available for each team however, its works effort and its Red Bull partner. The limitation is a result of the engine's introduction being brought forward to Monaco instead of Montreal a fortnight later, and the subsequent time constraints imposed upon the team as well as a parts shortage.

It remains unclear at this stage which drivers will respectively benefit from the upgrade, but one would assume that the respective teams would most probably give preference to their best-placed driver in the championship, namely Kevin Magnussen at Renault and Daniel Ricciardo at Red Bull.

Renault's engine technical director Remy Taffin has announced that the new unit will provide a gain of approximately half a second per lap.

"The power unit we have used since the first race in Australia was really a continuation of the work started in the ‘Spec D’ power unit we introduced at the tail end of 2015," Taffin explained.

"We explored some concepts in that earlier iteration and the 2016 unit took them further, for example, in the turbo.

"This new spec goes even further down the line and also includes significant modifications to the combustion system.

"It will make the ICE more powerful but also efficient, leading to a gain of around half a second per lap. We’ve used a small proportion of our token allocation for this upgrade."

In the absence of a French Grand Prix, Monaco is perceived by Renault as a substitute home race where it will be looking for an upbeat performance.

"Monaco is the slowest circuit on the calendar so the demands on the car and power unit are very different to the previous event in Barcelona," Taffin added.

"We will work on providing good mechanical grip for the chassis, with high level wings and relatively soft suspension settings, while on the engine front we need to work on driveability in the lower rev range.

"It’s not necessarily an ‘engine’ circuit, but getting the right set-up and a chassis and engine that is really dialled together can pay dividends in the overall lap time."

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