Abiteboul accepts that reliability ‘remains an issue’ for Renault

2017 Mexican Grand Prix

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Renault F1 team’s managing director Cyril Abiteboul has admitted that reliability is ‘an issue’ for the manufacturer after multiple retirements in Mexico.

Both Nico Hulkenberg and Carlos Sainz Jnr retired from the race, while both Toro Rosso drivers and Daniel Ricciardo were all affected by reliability issues throughout the weekend.

“The Mexican Grand Prix was a difficult one for us with multiple incidents throughout the weekend,” said Abiteboul.

“Both Nico’s retirement and one of our partner teams’ car is a reminder that reliability remains an issue and the consequences weigh heavily on us and our customer teams.”

Both Brendon Hartley and Pierre Gasly were affected by turbocharger problems on Saturday, with Hartley forced to stop with a smoking car around the mid point of the race.

“Being in high altitude, we recognise the inevitable challenges this circuit brings,” says Abiteboul. “It’s about finding performance without compromising reliability.

“This weekend, we had performance, qualifying was very good for many of the different Renault-powered cars. However, the balance between performance and reliability was not good.”

Despite the troubles for Renault, Max Verstappen secured victory for Red Bull after a dominant performance that saw him lead every lap of the race.

“Max Verstappen’s win confirms the engine’s potential and I want to congratulate him and his team for this great race,” says Abiteboul.

“I’d also like to congratulate Lewis Hamilton who entered our sport’s history today. As a team, we need to stay motivated for the last two races and focus on our objectives.”

2017 Mexican Grand Prix

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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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13 comments on “Abiteboul accepts that reliability ‘remains an issue’ for Renault”

  1. Great news for McLaren

    1. There were 2 cars with Honda engines finishing the Mexico GP and 2 cars with Renault engines, what an awkward moment that is

  2. Remember, everything runs much hotter at 7000 feet.

  3. It was a tale of 2 extremes: the engine powered the fastest car overall and got the race win. Both Renaults qualified well and looked to have same pace as the Force Indias but then in the race only one car kept true to form…

    1. You sure it kept form? Horner was really nervous when he was interviewed by Sky. Sure, it did finish and it finished 20 seconds ahead of this year’s winning car. But, the temperatures on Max’s car and the pressures were increasing throughout the race. I also wanted to tell Max: Chill!!! You already have 10+ seconds and the win. Just turn the engine down, lift and coast and bring it home.

      1. Yes they had to manage but looking into many earlier races Hamilton also turned the engine down after having a gap. The thing is that even with turning the engine down, they were able to keep increasing the gap and only Vettel managed to lap faster.
        So I understand your remark that they had to take precautions but the car was still quick overall.

  4. An issue? It was five of six!

  5. Good to see that they admit they have an “issue”, the Turbo clearly was not made for reliable running at this altitude, since the majority of Renault powered cars had at least 1 problem with it this race.

  6. Good to see Renault take their commitement to mclaren seriously

  7. Remains ‘an issue’? That’s 4 out of the past 5 races that Hulkenberg has retired with a car issue, probably costing about 30 points (4th SIN, 8th JAP, 6th USA & MEX). And then the Toro Rosso’s and Red Bull’s too, who’ve had pretty poor reliability all season. It’s costing them valuable constructors points. At the moment, they’re 1 point ahead of Haas who are 8th. They should be comfortably 5th, about halfway between Force India and Williams. But it looks like they won’t even get close to Williams.

  8. Sorry… This is the same Cyril Abiteboul who said that they’d played it “too conservative” with their 2017 engines?

    http://en.f1i.com/news/282779-renault-less-conservative-engines-2018.html

    “We have always been – in the history of Renault in F1, in terms of engine development – on the conservative side when it comes to developing performance”

  9. “Multiple” incidents? How about all cars but one?

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