Renault driver Jolyon Palmer says he was disappointed after software issues on the RS-16 limited him to only 37 laps on the first day of the Barcelona test.
Due to the limited running the Renault driver achieved he finished the first day bottom of the timing sheets with a time of 1m29.356s. That was over four seconds back from day one pace setter Sebastian Vettel and only Romain Grosjean from Haas completed fewer laps than the Briton.
Speaking after to Motorsport.com after the test Palmer was understandably disappointed.
“Disappointing first day, it’s been challenging,” Palmer said. “[It was] usual first-day issues, but we definitely would have liked to get more laps under our belt.
“It’s painful – they’ve already cut down from 12 days to eight days and now I’ve only gotten 37 laps out of one. It’s not ideal.
“I had a lot of mileage last year, the car’s an evolution from last year, so it didn’t feel massively different. But we didn’t really do a lot of performance running… any performance running. It’s frustrating but I’ve got three more days, it’s plenty of laps.”
Palmer was quick to dispel rumours there was a power unit issue instead sighting a software issue as the main cause of the limited amount of running he managed, but he expects the problem to be rectified by tomorrow. He will be hoping the issues are fully resolved so he can have a full day’s testing before handing the RS-16 over to Kevin Magnussen for Wednesday and Thursday.
“It wasn’t a power unit issue, it was a software issue,” he said. “Whether that’s coming from the power unit, we need to understand.
“The guys have been working all day, trying to get on top of [the problem]. We made progress throughout the day, hopefully overnight we can fix it for good.”
Whilst discussing the Renault power unit Palmer admitted he could tell the difference in performance between this year’s power unit and the Mercedes power unit in the lotus he test drove during the 2015 Formula One season.
“There’s a difference – it’s obviously not as powerful as the Mercedes engine and you can feel that,” he said.
“But there’s benefits as well – the driveability is good, the Renault engine guys are working very well. We’ve been working with them over the winter and they’ve got a good handle on the procedures, the driveability of the engine.
“But, at the moment now, still definitely behind Mercedes on power.”
By being a part of Lotus throughout 2015, Palmer had first-hand experience of the lack of development on the Lotus E23 and with that car being the base of the Renault RS-16 he suggested there will be lots of improvements to the RS-16 before the season opener in Melbourne.
“There’s plenty to go through,” he said. “It was fairly last-minute to get it ready and the guys did a really good job to roll out for 9 o’clock.
“But there’s a lot to go on, so over the next few days, next week and Melbourne as well it’s gonna be quite different.”
