Renault aim to “chase down” Williams

2017 Singapore Grand Prix

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Renault has set its sights on beating Williams, the team which is three places ahead of them in the constructors’ championship with seven races to go.

The team believes the remaining tracks on the schedule will suit its car much better than Monza did.

“Williams sit just 21 points ahead of us in fifth place in the constructors’ championship,” said team principal Cyril Abiteboul. “With seven races to go, it’s very much in our capability to chase that down by the end of the season.”

“We need to create some momentum and string together some consistent results with both cars inside the top ten. Singapore will be vital to kick start this effort.”

Abiteboul said the team took heart from Red Bull’s performance in Italy. “Daniel Ricciardo’s impressive drive from 16th on the grid to fourth place is particularly encouraging,” he said. “It meant a Renault engine had a best finish at Monza since the introduction of the V6 turbo hybrid engines in 2014.”

The team will make changes to its personnel this weekend as Matthieu Dubois takes over as head of race strategy, reporting to sporting director Alan Permane.

The team’s technical director Nick Chester predicted Renault will be “back to our Britain, Hungary and Spa level of performance” in Singapore.

“We’ve made softer rear springs to make the rear end more compliant which will aid traction,” he said. “As ever, you have to get the compromise right as it’s a balance between a compliant chassis and not losing too much aero performance. We have some minor updates to the bodywork which we will evaluate during the practice sessions.”

Chester said the team has “kept improving the car” this year. “Since Silverstone the car has been a chunk more competitive.”

“Budapest and Spa kept that trend up and we were the fourth quickest car in terms of pace. We weren’t as quick in Monza, but the upcoming races should see us back to the level of performance we saw at Spa.”

“There are no remaining tracks with super low downforce. We have good potential to be strong at these next three Asian races.”

2017 Singapore Grand Prix

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    Keith Collantine
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    19 comments on “Renault aim to “chase down” Williams”

    1. Does this mean Palmer Karma is out? Otherwise I don’t see Renault beating Williams.

      1. Renault should start with reliability ( at least for poor Palmer) to get two cars in the points.

      2. Today I saw Mr. Dieter Rencken mention that apparently the deal is on the table to have Sainz move to Renault from Malaysia onwards (and Matsushita doing FP1 sessions for STR, potentially to become a race driver for 2018) as part of the whole chairdance with the engines (Honda to STR and maybe RBR for 2019 too, Renault to McLaren).

        It would make sense that Renault want Carlos to be able to earn points.

        1. Won’t Matsushita be shy enough Superlicense points unless he wins his current championship?

    2. Between the works Renault team and Force India, Williams team has a bulls-eye target on their back and they need to really step up performance and results.

      1. @photogcw Force India are ahead of Williams – surely the target on their back is what’s Team Willy is chasing.

    3. Ferrari vs Mercs with RedBull catching up

      Renault vs Williams

      Ocon vs Perez,

      This season is awesome :D

      1. @redbullf1 I hope we are able to look back after the last 7 races and add Ricciardo vs Verstappen to that list!

      2. Ocon vs Perez,

        Hahha. But seriously, teammate vs teammate are the only REAL battles. They should be encouraged and awarded.

    4. Well if they had 2 Hulkenberg’s, they’d be ahead already. However, comma, Palmer exists.

      1. @hugh11
        Doesn’t matter much who’s in the other car if it keeps breaking down.

        1. @george

          Doesn’t matter much who’s in the other car if it keeps breaking down.

          It does. Even with his horrible reliability, Palmer has finished 8 races out of 13 so far. Hülkenberg has scored 22 points in those races, and a hypothetical driver who would’ve finished every race Palmer has finished, on the position behind Hülkenberg, could’ve scored 17 points. Or 11 points, if we disregard Spa. With 11 points more, Renault would be two places further up, sitting just 10 points behind Williams.

      2. @hugh11
        In that regard, I find Abiteboul’s assessment rather amusing.

        We need to […] string together some consistent results with both cars inside the top ten.

        Yeah, well. Wouldn’t that be a whole lot more likely if their second driver had actually managed to finish inside the top ten at least once?

        1. Maybe with Sainz joining they might have a chance. Jolyon just isn’t points material.

          1. @todfod
            Yes, definitely. Would be interesting to compare Hülkenberg with Sainz, but my gut feeling is that Sainz could well be a driver who would’ve scored at least 11 points in Palmer’s stead.
            If he’s Hülkenberg’s equal or even better, not sure about that, but we’ll see.

    5. No pressure then, Hulk.

    6. Even with Williams being so much slower than they were at the start of the season, Felipe is picking up one or two points consistently. To make up 21 points, they will need a big result in some freak race in order to reduce the gap by enough. The current pace of Hulkenberg is not enough to bridge that gap.
      They should overtake Haas who are completely unpredictable with pace and Toro Rosso who also only have one driver performing.

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