Renault Sport F1 managing director Cyril Abiteboul says the improved driveability of the French power units enabled Red Bull and Toro Rosso to focus on unlocking more performance in last weekend’s Malaysian Grand Prix.
Following a tough season-opening race in Melbourne where Christian Horner slammed its engines as “undriveable”, Renault launched several measures to fix the issue ahead of round two of this year’s championship.
Progress was felt as early as Friday in Sepang, with all four Renault-powered drivers reporting better driveability on their units. The French manufacturer also made a step forward in terms of reliability, as both Toro Rossos and Red Bulls finished in the points in one of the most grueling events on the F1 calendar.
“We can see that the measures and countermeasures put in place since (Melbourne) have paid dividends here,” said Abiteboul. “Engine-wise we are much more where we should have been in Australia.
“Reliability has globally been good – as it should be – and the improvements to driveability have allowed the teams to focus on the set-ups and see where the true performance of the cars is at the moment.”
Although Renault managed to place three cars in the top-ten during qualifying, neither could realistically match the leaders’ pace on race day. But director of operations Rémi Taffin believes this is only a question of time before Renault’s partner teams can mix it among the frontrunners again.
“Driveability has been reasonably levelled up, and the drivers could clearly explore the potential of their cars,” said Taffin.
“Absolute performance can be and will be improved while we are some way behind the front of the pack. We clearly have some potential in hand and improving reliability will allow us to get closer in the near future.”
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