Romain Grosjean, Kevin Magnussen, Haas, Red Bull Ring, 2018

Renault wary of Haas repeating Austria result

RaceFans Round-up

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In the round-up: Renault technical director Nick Chester says the team is concerned Haas could wipe out its advantage in the constructors’ championship by repeating its Austrian Grand Prix result.

What they say

Chester was asked whether Renault could afford to slacken its development pace in the second half of the season:

We know we can’t really. We’re going to have to develop. We’ve got things in the pipeline that are going to hit after shutdown. Maybe when we get to race 15, race 16 we can review it but by then most things will be in process anyway.

It’s just too tight. With only 21 points in it, you know, the Austria result you could wipe that out. We’ve got to keep going, keep pushing and just get pace on the car.

Quotes: Dieter Rencken

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Comment of the day

What’s your verdict on Formula E after its first four seasons?

Formula E is a fun series to watch if you can. Yeah, it doesn’t have some characteristics that F1 has and we love, but that’s the point of its existence!

We have seen four years and the series were unpredictable, all teams could sprung a surprise result and more and more big manufacturers are coming into the series.

A big problem with Formula E is their circuits. With the exception of Marrakesh and Berlin, all the other street circuits are messy and it makes it difficult to follow the race process.

Heading into season five, FE is growing, with bigger names coming into the series. Looking forward to see the new cars in action.
Miltiadis (@miltosgreekfan)

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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41 comments on “Renault wary of Haas repeating Austria result”

  1. Great article on Alonso by Benson. I think he will flourish in the US and give Indy car a huuuuuge boost.
    Will all the bashing he receives in Europe, it’s good to see him go somewhere where he will be more appreciated.
    Can’t help but think Hammy is a bit jealous to see all the fanfare Alonso is getting.

    1. agreed, that was a great article. his stuff his usual horrible, but that was beautifully written. i felt quite emotional reading about his great drives. also, alonso’s quote about not having the success he might have deserved is so, so telling:

      “Well,” he said, “in a way it is better this way. I would not be happy if I had so many trophies at home and people thought I didn’t deserve them.”

      it reveals so much about his character (not all good) and explains, i think, much more about why he has taken the decisions he has over the years, and how he has justified them subsequently.

  2. Lewis is about to win WDC #5, while Alonso maxed out with 2, and he’s jealous. Right. F1 is the pinnacle of motor racing and Alonso’s skulking off to Indycars, or heaven forbid FE, because he couldn’t find a drive in a competitive car. And Lewis is jealous of this. Don’t think so.

    1. I think if hammy has stayed at McLaren and Alonso gone to Merc we would be about to witness Alonso win his 7th WDC and Hamilton release his first album.

      1. Right. The car is more important than the meatbag sitting in it.

        1. Meatbags. That must be the reason some of the smartest car manufacturers on earth pay drivers ungodly amounts of money to race their cars. You must know a lot more than they do. Call Toto, Cyril or Maurizio and explain your cost saving thoughts to them. You may even get a job.

          1. If you want to see meatbags watch Indy cars or NASCAR. Those guys can’t drive around track with only left hand turns and no braking without crashing every 5 laps.

          2. My point was that FA has been chasing a car capable of winning the championship for years, with no end in sight I would have probably called it quits too. I have a suspicious feeling that Lewis would’ve left a couple of years ago if he’d been in the same machinery as Alonso. Alonso is an incredibly devisive driver but he is always on it on a Sunday.

    2. “F1 is the pinnacle of motor racing…” This is the world’s most tiresome cliche. F1 is F1, and that’s all it is.

      It’s like saying one woman is the most beautiful and desirable woman in the world. What does that men? The rest are unattractive? The rest are not unique and having their own allure? You wouldn’t marry or be with any woman except that one who is the pinnacle of womanhood?

      Enough with this pinnacle cliche. It may not even be true in the realm of automotive technology. It would truly be the pinnacle of auto racing if it had an open formula where designers were free to innovate at any time. Instead, we are stuck with a Rube Goldberg approach to providing motive power to the cars, and the dominant teams fight hard to resist even minor changes to what is basically a static technology were all tired of hearing about after several years of beating the same tired horse for that last one percent of power output. Some pinnacle.

      1. Nope, its not just a cliche. Its the most expensive series to be in, the cars are more advanced in almost every way than anything out there.
        And even average ex F1 drivers do very well in other series which show the level of drivers as well.

        1. You’re correct, FB. Current F1 cars are the most highly developed and costly racing cars ever made. Now some folk might not like the direction the technology has taken, and maybe the current iteration doesn’t allow for “exciting” racing – hence the various artificial devices – DRS, degrading tires – to try spice things up – but right now no other type of racing car can match the lap time of these cars. And they require the fittest, smartest drivers to get the best performance out of them.

      2. I couldn’t agree more with this. Considering that stats aren’t a true reflection of ones talent in F1 and huge gaps between competitors incl their spend with the competitiveness of other racing series, F1 can’t be considered the pinnacle. What F1 has is a rich history and not a rich present, for how long can F1 rest on its laurels? The game has changed and F1 isn’t the be all and end all anymore, it’s not even seen as cool to the below 20’s generation anymore.

      3. Very nicely put. Rube Goldberg, nice!

        That said, my wife is the pinnacle of womanhood. Sorry fellas, I got her.

        1. Watch out.. you can loose your seat in no time ;)

        2. @mog – are You being payed to “drive” for her or do You have to bring money? :-)

  3. Leaving the Fans to their usual thoughtful, considered and unbiased opinions, let’s look at Renault, could they surpass Ferrari and Mercedes,? maybe, similarly I could be worth more than Au$100,000,000 tomorrow, I have a plan, I have made an investment, the odds are rather long though, as I expect are Renaults.

    1. @hohum: Hope your investment pays off tomorrow. And you take all (or a selected group of) racefans commenters to Spa with you. And if Renault’s odds pay off next year, I’d be ok with that too. But first, let’s toast to your good fortune. ;-)

      1. @jimmi-cynic, thanks for the good wishes but don’t count on that Spa trip as the odds are in the region of 60million to one.

        1. @hohum: So…what you’re saying is…there’s still hope! For you. Me. And Renault.

          1. I’m on board too, as I am on waiting to see whether Renault make it or not

    2. You have to love Cyril though.

      Starts with a “next year we’ll be much faster” about now.
      Around season end it will be “we are encouraged by our planned upgrades”
      By Christmas it will be “we will be conservative with introducing upgrades to ensure we maintain reliability”
      By season start it will be “We’re not expecting any major PU upgrades until after the summer break”
      By summer break it will be “I never sad that” (when reminded of the interview he did for the German Mag.

      Being an Aussie and a Danny Ric fan I’d love to be wrong but ……

    3. I read the article elsewhere and he meant the engine could catch Mercedes or Ferrari, not the team. He doesnt think they will be up for any wins until 2020, and wont be able to fight for the championship until 2021… its still a stretch in my eyes, but the claim wasnt what was summarised.

    4. To their defense, they are progressing in the right direction and have been moving up the leader board from one season to the next.
      Not sure they will reach the top teams as soon as next year but they should detach themselves from the midfield, there is plenty of space in between the top three and current midfield (unfortunately for us). The winter will be very interesting for Renault and McLaren.

    5. To be fair Cyril is only talking about the PU.
      It becomes a bit laughable/ridiculous though when he states that RBR’s deficit in quali is chassis related.

      He also admits that on the chassis side they have no clue. Seems to be level playing ground with McLaren then :)

  4. “bombshell” tweet from Keith…
    Totally agree – move on…!

    1. Didn’t really think the Ricciardo one was all that much of a bombshell either (but then I was tipping that from the start of this year) but 100% agree with Keith about the Alonso announcement. Really why would anyone be surprised.

  5. @Bob‘s tweet – give Race Fans a whirl?

  6. Nope, alonso is a proper racing superstar, and it is a bombshell, especially announced in this break. Leaving f1 for another series is a bombshell in itself that hardly any drivers have ever tried, and the ones that did, ie montoya and Mansell were also bombshells. Ricciardo’s was bombshell news also.

    1. Yeah for me, an icon such as FA leaving F1 is bombshell, even if not that surprising. With DR, it seemed to me most were expecting him to move to Mercedes or Ferrari, almost like it was his choice, then in the last few months that faded, so then most thought he would stay at RBR, and then the Renault announcement. Given that many thought until recent weeks he would leave anyway, just not to Renault, I thought the news was more surprising than bombshell. Go from a third place team to a third or worse place team next year? Not that bombshell. Bombshell would have been the move to Mercedes or Ferrari that many seemed to think was on.

  7. Cyril really needs to zip it on his comments. Renault will catch up or even be ahead of Mercedes and Ferrari in 2019?!?! This statement is almost as laughable as some of Honda’s statements in the past.

    Renault’s only chance to have a comparable PU will now be in 2021. Let’s hope they don’t drop the ball again.

    1. Hey Cyril’s comments are more accurate than Brown’s, Boullier’s and Alonso’s put together! Still waiting for them to Challenge Red Bull!

      1. They’ll probably challenge Red Bull next year.. when there’s Honda power at the back of that Red Bull.. lol

        1. Let’s hope Honda delivers next year..
          So a lot of “fans” can eat there words.

    2. Unless they’ve been holding back releasing a huge upgrade until they felt their chassis was better and RBR dropped off.

      If that’s the case, I imagine a bunch of team lawyers from several teams they’ve been supplying will be looking very closely at the terminology of the contracts they had.

      That being said, when they returned as a manufacturer I didn’t really expect any miracles with their PU until they got other things like designers, chassis, driver pairing etc all sorted. Maybe they’ll get more budget for the PU development at the end of the year.

      1. Unless they’ve been holding back releasing a huge upgrade until they felt their chassis was better and RBR dropped off.

        If that’s the case, I imagine a bunch of team lawyers from several teams they’ve been supplying will be looking very closely at the terminology of the contracts they had.

        @dbradock

        Even if they did hold back development, there’s nothing Red Bull can do about it. Red Bull are just a customer, and customers wait for the engine manufacturer to put out updates. Renault can come up with a bunch of reasons on why these “performance” updates didn’t come on time, and there’s nothing Red Bull’s team of lawyers can really do about it.

        Having said that, I don’t actually take a lot of Renault’s statements on engine upgrades seriously. Their “massive” update was a whole lot less impressive than both Ferrari’s and Mercedes’ last update, and they didn’t even create a lot of hype around it. I don’t think Renault have anything serious coming up on the engine front… unless they’ve figured out some of Ferrari’s dodgy tactics with the electrical system manipulation.

    3. @todfod … a statement made only a few days after acknowledging that they were too conservative with their PU development and didn’t cut the gap in 2018, with Ferrari even making unexpected strides forward.

      1. There is certainly no evidence to suggest Renault will make such a stride, so I find his comments surprising. Hey it would be great for F1 if Renault and Honda would up their game relatively, and tighten up the field, but let’s not forget Mercedes and Ferrari will make strides for next year too.

        For Renault to even get to third in the WCC would mean they’d have to match their chassis to Newey’s, for it was RBR that was maximizing the Pu, not Renault themselves. So, yeah, I won’t be holding my breath that suddenly one year to the next Renault’s Pu is on par or better than 2019 Merc and Ferrari, and the chassis will be there for them too. It would certainly be a season to season turnaround of historic proportions.

  8. Renault catching and or even surpassing Ferrari and Mercedes on the engine/PU side next season? Fat chance.
    – Concerning the F1 Broadcasting-article: Once again, another example, of a big fuss being made out of nothing, and what’s even weirder is the fact how long after the race this has only being brought up suddenly out of the blue.
    – Regarding the ESPN-article: I tend to not buy into things as long as they aren’t officially confirmed, so better to just wait and see.

    1. Well, seems to be confirmed now @jerejj

      1. @bosyber Yes, indeed.

  9. So what does it say about me that I have no recollection whatsoever of having seen that garishly big Rolex image superimposed on the Singapore wheel in 2016? And seeing the pic, I don’t see how I’d have missed it. Guess i look at the track?

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