Renault engines ‘vulnerable to failure’ in Bahrain

2015 Bahrain Grand Prix

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Renault have admitted that they cannot guarantee their engines will not be struck again by the same unknown problem that ended Max Verstappen’s Chinese Grand Prix.

The engine supplier has been able to determine the cause of both Daniil Kvyat and Max Verstappen’s failures during last weekend’s race, but Renault’s Rob White admitted his team have not yet been able to provide a solution for the problem that afflicted Verstappen’s power unit in China.

“We were absolutely not expecting such a thing at such a low mileage, so a real shame to end the race for him in that way,” said White.

“The time is such that the best we have for this week is engines of a similar spec, that we must look after during the Friday, Saturday and of course Sunday running, but we are vulnerable to that failure still.”

The short turnaround between the Chinese and Bahrain rounds has prevented Renault from addressing the issue for this weekend, but aim to find a solution for the Spanish Grand Prix.

“The mucky detail of it is that the only legal way to get the engines out of China was for them to travel with the freight to Bahrain as expected,” said White.

“To get them to France to be stripped down and inspected would have been Wednesday or Thursday. So we didn’t do that.

“Looking forward, the task back at the factory is to create a solution to that for the races ahead. We’re not out of the woods yet on that one.”

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Will Wood
Will has been a RaceFans contributor since 2012 during which time he has covered F1 test sessions, launch events and interviewed drivers. He mainly...

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7 comments on “Renault engines ‘vulnerable to failure’ in Bahrain”

  1. So the choice is dial it down and race with McLaren or run in the points until it blows?

    I’m going to call it now, Alonso for P10.

    1. I’ll be more surprised if there are no Renault problems than if Alonso or Button score points.

  2. Renault engines ‘vulnerable to failure’

    I think that the final two words of this article’s title can be removed, and it is still just as accurate.

  3. It is unbelievable: the FIA introduces the new rules lamenting “We have to spend less” at the same time. Now small teams do not want to increase the number of engines to be used this year because it means they will have to pay more. Nevertheless, these small teams will have to pay more for the new engines anyway as it seems that every team has reliability issues.
    Is it a joke from the FIA? Are they making fun of the F1? Or what is it?

    1. Neither, the engineers have simply failed, That is it. No conspiracy, no joke. Mercedes got it right, Ferrari have finally got there, jury is still out on Honda, but Renault have failed miserably.

      This could have happened with any engine formula. Why continually blame the FIA? This is the formula the teams themselves voted for.

    2. @slava
      The contracts are for the season. So Sauber has contract with Ferrari my engine supplier, means Ferrari should come up with a working engine on the raceday. If more engine or engine components are used, that is the problem of Ferrari from money point of view. Driver and team gets penalized from points.
      It’s like 20 million Euros for 2015 not 20 million Euros for 4 engines.

      1. Also maybe crash damage is Team’s fault, so further the contract can say if team exceeds 4 or 5 engines due to crash then it may cost the team, if it is reliability then supplier’s liability.
        Depends on what kind of contract the team with supplier has.
        But I believe the bare minimum will be, if I crash damage, I pay, if engine blows then your liability.

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