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Daniel Ricciardo has been fitted with an upgraded engine for the French Grand Prix weekend, and avoids a penalty for doing so.
Ricciardo has not yet reached the number of engines he can use penalty-free, while teammate Nico Hulkenberg has, and therefore will not take the new engine, as Renault wants to avoid a penalty at its home race.
Renault is confident that the new engine is a 'good step forward' for the team, as it looks to build on its positive result that it picked up last time out in Canada.
"We will introduce a new Spec B ICE this weekend on Daniel’s car. This ICE represents a good step forward on performance,” Renault managing director Cyril Abiteboul confirmed.
“Nico will take his new engine at a different race, but as he will incur a penalty for exceeding the three ICEs permitted per year, we don’t want it to be in France, our home race."
Abiteboul confirmed that Paul Ricard was not the original planned date for the engine upgrade, but is pleased to reveal that it is ahead of schedule.
“The ICE was scheduled for use at a later race, but we are ahead of schedule, so are pleased to be able to use it here.”
Renault has also brought a major chassis upgrade to its home event as it looks to knock McLaren off the 'best of the rest' spot.
Grand Prix of Belgium
G. Zhou
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Replies (6)
Login to replyf1fan0101
Posts: 1,804
There'll be no excuse for a bad performance then
Ram Samartha
Posts: 1,172
You got to figure that it's only a matter of time before they get tired of being beat by their engine customers. It's really pretty impressive how McLaren has pulled it together this year. Contrast their attitude and management at McLaren with that at Williams and it's not too difficult to see why Williams is lagging.
calle.itw
Posts: 8,527
I think Brown has been great for McLaren, and I don't think their stint will end soon. And I also think this is us seeing that McLaren really do work best as a customer with little ability to impact engine development. Next year might be tougher due to losing a big sponsor in Petrobras, but at the same time I think the likes of McLaren will be benefitted by the coming budget cap.
boudy
Posts: 1,168
The issue with mcLaren will not be around losing sponsors since their improvement on track will result in gaining more sponsorship. Their issue is performance at the most they will reach close to an factory status, although Renault seems a lot fairer than Mercedes in willingness to give maximum performance.
With Mercedes it really looks like they will not unlock their engine performance unless their main team has something to gain. This goes back an couple of years but proofs the point:
www.reddit.com/r/f(...)tely_gave_lotus_an/
calle.itw
Posts: 8,527
Yes, but Petrobras was both a major (a major) sponsor and a partner, providing lube and soup and such. They can recoup that, sure, are already kinda doing with their shady totally not tobacco money and the Coca Cola deal, but it'll still be tough to recoup the kinda money Petrobras gave them. As for Renault being fair: again, remember Toro Rosso in Brazil their last year before going Honda. They ain't the worst no, but they will be fair until it is convenient not to be.
Ram Samartha
Posts: 1,172
In fairness they did give Red Bull that updated engine spec for Danny Ric at the end of the season last year when they didn't use it themselves. Maybe ulterior motives involved but they seem to have acted in good faith with Red Bull.