Renault admit it tried "too much" with current engine

Renault has revealed that it tried too much with its 2017 engine and attempted to change more than what was wise, and are now suffering the consequences. The Renault engine has proven to be quite unreliable, giving the works team and its customers problems.

The French manufacturer attempted to go for a radical change for the 2017 season in a scheme to heavily close the gap to Mercedes. However, the changes have only landed Renault in a number of problems including the major and painful decision to revert to its 2016 MGU-K.

"I cannot look professional if I tell you that these were expected problems, because we don’t design a new engine expecting that it is not going to work," Cyril Abiteboul said to Autosport. "The reality, and that is still a frustrating thing, is that we are still not great at designing first time.

"Having said that, we have done an awful lot on the engine side - the ICE architecture is completely different, the ERS is completely different. We can challenge the decision to do that much in one winter, and frankly, I think we have done a bit too much."

Despite its 2017 struggles, Abiteboul is confident that Renault will be able to drastically improve next season: "It is nearly behind us, it is not behind us yet, but it is a year of consolidation also on the engine side. There will be much more stability next year, and we will be able to focus on extracting more performance from the different components that we have introduced, and hopefully in a much more reliable manner."

Fergal Walsh