Renault bringing engine upgrades at next two races

2017 Belgian Grand Prix

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Renault will upgrade its engine in time for the next two races on F1’s most power-demanding circuits.

The team’s engine technical director Remi Taffin said “Spa and Monza will see new software and hardware updates” for their power units.

Renault suffered reliability problems early in the year
“We are looking at Monza as a benchmark as it could provide a clear picture of the ranking of the engines. Being in the top ten will be a good result as these next two circuits are power-hungry.”

“After Monza, we have more races and more things in the pipeline, the next two months will be important for the 2017 season outcome.”

Renault has struggled to make gains in the fourth year of the V6 hybrid turbo regulations as its initial development was hampered by a series of reliability problems. However Taffin believes they can establish themselves as the top team behind the ‘big three’ of Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull.

“We know we’re not the fastest on the grid,” he said “but as a team we are showing we are the force after the top three.”

“Qualifying pace has looked good with Great Britain and Hungary exemplifying our ability to be the fourth best team. It’s just a case of building on that and bettering the race pace.”

“That comes from levelling up everything, we need to show off reliability and mileage and that is something we are giving close attention. We are on a good trend and we will keep adding performance in terms of both aerodynamics and engine so hopefully this can be seen in the upcoming races.”

Renault made a step forward with an aerodynamic upgrade introduced on Nico Hulkenberg’s car at Silverstone but failed to score at the Hungaroring. “Our cars have been performing well,” Taffin added, “I can’t see any reason why Spa can’t continue that trend.”

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    Keith Collantine
    Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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    12 comments on “Renault bringing engine upgrades at next two races”

    1. Do Red Bull get these updates too?

      1. Maybe , depends on how Renault prioritises their needs over customer teams.

      2. I saw something a while back about how RB has complete parity as part of their agreement. To the extent that upgrades will be delayed if there are not enough for both teams. I don’t know how much truth there is to that but Red Bull are bullish negotiators and are unlikely to have left anything on the table with Renault.

    2. Yeah I a man quite confused as well since Verstappen just said that he expects no upgrades?

      Did he mean relative to Ferrari and Mercedes upgrades or absolute? The latter would indicate that he did not know about this which would be odd

      1. I would imagine Taffin would know more about the goings on inside the Renault team than Verstappen. Also Verstappen was probably commenting on Red Bell.

      2. I read Verstappen’s comments as meaning he knows there are upgrades coming, but he doesn’t think they’ll be worth much.

        1. That what I read somewhere too, “nothing substantial”.

    3. Indeed he was @johnrkh, but Khalistan F1’s interesting point is that Vestsppen should have known that upgrades were in the pipeline for the Renault engine, and the fact that he did not know could signal that Renault are not going to give the upgrades to Red Bull. I’m sure you know that despite RB’s PU bring badged Tag Heuer, it’s pure Renault under the skin. If true, this will make Doctor Doom eject his toys…

      1. Good point.

    4. Verstappen talked about engine updates coming, but he expects them to be “not much” compared to what other teams are doing.

    5. So another bummer for McLaren.

      1. Yep. All of Honda’s “gains” might just disappear from Spa onwards. I’m sure Alonso has one eye on Renault’s upgrade.

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