Red Bull hints at Renault upgrade for Singapore

Christian Horner hints that engine partner Renault could spend “a couple of tokens” ahead of the Singapore Grand Prix, with Red Bull keen to challenge Ferrari at Marina Bay.

Renault still has 21 development tokens available, having only used seven last winter, one at the Bahrain Grand Prix, and just three on the major B-spec evolution introduced at Monaco.

Horner was pleased with Red Bull’s ‘damage limitation weekend’ at power track Monza. When asked whether any updates were planned for Singapore, the team principal replied:

“We’ve got a few little bits and pieces, there maybe a couple of tokens spent as well. But really now obviously the factory is focussed on 2017 so there’s little bits and pieces but nothing major.

“[Singapore] is a different type of circuit... we expect to be stronger there, hopefully we can get closer to Ferrari again and give them a harder time than we did in Monza.”

Renault engine technical director Rémi Taffin declared in Hungary last July that the French manufacturer would not have any other upgrade of the magnitude of the B-spec this year.

At the start of the season, Renault managing director Cyril Abiteboul said he was confident significant progress could be made without using as many tokens as its rivals.

Ferrari spent its final tokens on a power unit upgrade introduced at Monza, while Honda and Mercedes had brought developments to Spa-Francorchamps, which were respectively worth seven and five tokens.

Here is a recap of how many tokens each engine supplier has left at the moment:

Ferrari: 0 (32 used)
Honda: 3 (29 used)
Mercedes: 6 (26 used)
Renault: 21 (11 used)

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