Renault’s Track Operations boss Rémi Taffin sees the engine manufacturer’s win at the Belgian Grand Prix in the form of Red Bull and Daniel Ricciardo’s 3rd win of the season as “renewned confidence” in its power-unit.
The 2014 campaign has seen the French company’s new turbo-charged power unit battle with unreliability as well as deficiencies in horsepower compared to its rivals Mercedes and Ferrari. With team principal Christian Horner calling the power-unit “unacceptable” earlier in the season as Sebastian Vettel suffered from power troubles in multiple races.
Despite this, two of its three wins so far this season have been at what many fans and experts alike commonly regard as “engine tracks” with Canada and Spa being such tracks and their long straights traditionally being a weakness of Renault engines.
Taffin reckons the belief restored within the camp is down to the work carried out closely behind the scenes with works team Red Bull and hopes to build on the momentum as they head to Monza next week, another engine track.
“A victory at an engine circuit where we were expected to struggle shows the never give up, never surrender mentality we have at Renault Sport F1 and how the knocks just make us work harder and smarter,” he stated.
“In the past few months we have been working even closer with Red Bull and the race on Sunday was an example of optimizing a chassis and engine package. This clear direction and streamlining is paying dividends.
He added: “Reliability is obviously now the key, and enhancing the package where we can. F1 is hard work, but also luck, and we had this at Spa. We will now carry forward this renewed confidence to Monza.”
