Renault’s Cyril Abiteboul has stated his team has no excuses with regards to its poor track record of reliability so far in 2017.
During the British Grand Prix weekend, Daniel Ricciardo suffered a turbo failure in qualifying, Jolyon Palmer did not even make the start of the race after a hydraulic issue, and Nico Hulkenberg suffered ERS problems in the final laps of the race which allowed Ricciardo to pass him.
With numerous failures on their power units, including those supplied to Red Bull and Toro Rosso, Abiteboul says the team’s main aim is to get on top of these issues as quickly as possible.
“We’re still unhappy with reliability,” he told Autosport. “We know this is our weakness, and we need to get that right.
“Frankly there is absolutely no reason to have to suffer to that extent, given where we are now in our programme. That has to be the focus – performance is pointing in the direction that we want, so our focus is reliability.”
Having brought a new floor to the Silverstone, which only Hulkenberg drove, the French outfit do believe it could be a launch pad into a development path for the RS17. Palmer will also run the new floor in Hungary next week.
The German driver experienced his best performance of the season in last week’s race at Silverstone, with further developments coming he is hoping they can bring more pace into the second half of the season.
“This was an important thing for us to bring this floor, and for it to deliver a big impact,” Hulkenberg added.”I know there are more things coming, even already for Budapest.
“I think the first half was decent, that was always my expectation, to be in the points now and then, but still a little bit behind the main midfield.
“I very much hope that at this rate of progression we can have a stronger second half, and battle the likes of Force India, Haas and Williams more, and take points off them.”
