Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has stated that customers of Renault are not presently receiving acceptable service as a result of the ‘dire’ unreliability of the power unit.
Max Verstappen retired from the Belgian Grand Prix while running fifth during the opening stages on Sunday, due to a power unit gremlin. The issue marked the fourth occasion in 2017 that the Dutchman has been forced into retirement courtesy of a mechanical failure.
Red Bull has previously expressed dissatisfaction with the Renault product, most notably in 2015 in which a year-long spat ultimately led to Red Bull re-branding the power unit as a TAG Heuer ahead of last season.
Horner’s comments following their most recent disappointment reflected the re-emergence of power related frustrations at Red Bull.
“Renault is quite aware that their reliability and product isn’t where it should be,” Horner reflected. “It’s their business to sort that out.
“We’re a paying customer and it’s obviously below par the service we are seeing at this point in time because [of the] reliability issues, the failures.
“It’s hurting them as much as it is hurting ourselves. At this level, you can’t afford the kind of failures that we’re consistently seeing.”
Red Bull is not the only team suffering Renault reliability woes. Toro Rosso’s Daniil Kvyat endured a weekend hampered by a failure in FP1, while Jolyon Palmer’s weekend was derailed when the gearbox expired in his works Renault machinery at the start of Q3.
“Reliability across the three teams is pretty dire,” Horner said. “It’s far from great and it’s not the level an engine supplier which wishes to be competitive in F1 should be at.”
Verstappen now faces the prospect of grid penalties at the Italian Grand Prix, having used up his entire allocation of internal combustion and MGU-H components.
Held at Monza, the Italian GP is the most power sensitive circuit of the season and, therefore, has the potential to further highlight Renault’s issues.
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