Video: Hulkenberg has first Renault run

2017 F1 season

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Nico Hulkenberg has driven his first laps in a Renault Formula One car at the Ricardo Tormo circuit in Valencia, Spain. He sampled the RS16 car the team used last season.

Hulkenberg has joined the team following a three-year stint at Force India. He will partner Jolyon Palmer at the squad.

Renault will reveal its new car for 2017 on February 21st.

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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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14 comments on “Video: Hulkenberg has first Renault run”

  1. Out of curiosity, would this count as a filming day since it’s last year’s car or does the rule shakeup mean that the RS16’s considered sufficiently different?

    1. good question

    2. @repete86, it does still count as a filming day as, even though the bodywork is being modified quite heavily in 2017, there are still enough common elements with the 2017 cars for it to come under the testing restrictions.

      1. Not to mention all parts of the car that aint getting modified for next year.

  2. Well, they must be hoppeing to gain something. Maybe input from Hulkenberg on what he wants in 2017 car. But it does seem very desperate.

    And why do a filming day?

  3. SaturnVF1 (@doublestuffpenguin)
    20th January 2017, 20:28

    It does seem pointless to run a new driver in a ’16 car. I wonder if they’re testing the new power unit.

    1. @doublestuffpenguin, that would not be permitted under the current regulations – Renault have to notify the FIA a minimum of 72 hours in advance of the event and, as part of their application, give the exact specification of the car to the FIA (with the FIA sending a technical delegate to supervise the event to ensure that only the agreed components are fitted). They can use components which were used during the 2016 season on that car, but they are not allowed to fit any new parts to their car – i.e. you wouldn’t be allowed to fit a 2017 spec engine into a 2016 car.

      With that in mind, it would seem that it is more likely that Renault would be using this as an opportunity for Hulkenberg to familiarise himself with the layout of their cockpit and to give him an indication of the performance characteristics of their power unit (even if they are changing it for 2017).

      1. Why can’t they stick the new engine in an old formula car, go to Korea, test the car endlessly?

        Why can’t they take the whole car to a remote place where nobody will know, not even team members, and develop the perfect car?

        1. And you think they dont do this? Ofc theres illegal testing going on in probably all the teams.

          1. Well, Honda had the opportunity to test as much as they wanted LEGALLY before entering as McLaren partners and yet they failed miserably.

        2. Locarf, I doubt that you could keep such a major breach of the regulations like that out of the headlines – after all, we saw how the secret tests that Mercedes carried out with Pirelli in 2013 were quickly exposed, and that was despite very thorough security measures by Mercedes.

          The team itself is still going to be dependent on third parties for other items, from components through to accommodation, and inevitably information from them will leak out to the outside world.

          Take, for example, the matter of tyre supplies – given that Pirelli tracks every individual set of tyres that are issued to the teams throughout the year (which the teams have to return to Pirelli between races), you wouldn’t be able to source tyre supplies from them outside of the set periods.

          If you turned to an outside supplier – for example, if you tried speaking to Avon tyres – I am very sure that they would immediately start being suspicious as to why you were suddenly demanding F1 spec tyres.
          Furthermore, given that they would almost certainly have different performance characteristics to the tyres that would be used during the season, any data that you did acquire which was dependent on that might turn out to be misleading.

  4. I’d love to hear Hulks uncensored comments immediately after his first run in the car…

    1. Sure that thing must feel like a dog compared to last years Force India-Mercedes.

  5. “Haha yeah, really funny guys. Now give me a proper setup. What?”

Comments are closed.