Struggling Renault Will Revamp F1 Car In Time For French GP

Renault will reportedly bring substantial modifications to its Formula 1 car in time for this year’s French Grand Prix, after managing to clear a backlog of new parts that hindered the team’s early-season development.

Early issues stemmed from a conrod failure, followed by further problems due to not being able to get upgrades from the design phase and onto the car quickly enough. Now, the French outfit has made changes to its infrastructure in order to speed things along.

According to Renault F1 boss Cyril Abiteboul, parts that should have been on the car many races ago are being prepped in time for this month’s French GP at Circuit Paul Ricard on June 23rd, as reported by Autosport.

“I think it’s fair to say that we are behind,” stated Abiteboul. “We’ve been behind all winter, mainly in terms of timing. We’ve been playing catch-up for a lot of reasons and we’ve not been good at sticking to milestones, at being efficient at getting from aerodynamics into design office into production.”

“Production is still saturated with a number of designs that should have been released weeks ago.”

Also read: Renault F1 Boss Says Red Bull Wouldn’t Be Where They Are Without Their Engine

To understand just how far behind Renault are from both a development standpoint and overall performance, look no further than the 16 point gap between them and 4th place McLaren, who utilize the very same engine as the French team.

“We are committed by Paul Ricard to have all the problems and all the delays that have been hurting us at the start of the season sorted out,” added Abiteboul. “So what that means is the engine will be back at full power and even a bit more, and that should be available at Paul Ricard. We will also have a number of upgrades, quite substantial on the aerodynamic side.”

“And last but not least, we will have a number of performance projects that have not been delivered on time, because of all the delays in the rest of the organisation, that will be delivered for Paul Ricard at the latest.”