Renault focused too much on power rather than reliability

F1 News

24 May 2019 at 10:13
2
  • Louis Shaw
  • Editor

Renault boss Cyril Abiteboul has admitted that his team has focused too much on power rather than reliability in the early stages of the 2019 season. The team hopes that they have now rebalanced this as they say their engine is now more reliable. 

"This winter we were given the opportunity to properly focus on power gain, and competitiveness gain," said Abiteboul to Motorsport.com. "What it meant was we consciously decided to focus on performance, to the detriment of reliability.

"It means that a number of engines that should have been used on the dyno to secure reliability were actually used to develop performance. So what it meant was a very good start in terms of engine power, but reliability that was below standard.

"Two reasons, one which you know which was the MGU-K, and one which you don't know, which was that Nico's failure in Bahrain was actually a conrod failure – so typically a part that you don't want to break, because it's a part at the bottom of the engine, and a fundamental part."

Renault will hope to bounce back and that their new reliability will mean that they can have more success in the races to come.