Renault on Red Bull: ‘Difficult to have a partner that lies’
Sarah Jane Mogford March 25, 2015 F1 - Latest News Leave a comment
It appears the relationship between Renault and Red Bull has indeed hit difficult times, with the Managing Director of their Renault engine supplier publicly accusing them of lying, in the latest war of words.
2014 was a difficult year for the partnership. Renault could be accused of being masters of their own downfall, having pushed for the engine hybrid development restrictions to the extent to threatening to withdraw from F1 if they did not get their own way. However, they were not as far ahead of the development game as they thought and soon found that out in pre season testing in 2014.
It also appears, so far, that the French manufacturer have not made up as much ground over this winter as hoped and again Mercedes are the unit to beat, with the Ferrari engine having made up in performance over the off season. Relationships appeared to be part of the problem from the Red Bull camp, who publicly stated that Renault were being difficult to communicate with and effectively holding back the teams development.
The Adelaide season opener saw Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo finishing sixth (and lapped). The frustration of Red Bull showed when its’ boss, Christian Horner criticised Renault and revealed that the 2015 power unit was sone 100bhp down to other teams.
Designer Adrian Newey also produced negative Renault comments, suggesting that there was ‘no light at the end of the tunnel’ for Renault.
Renault’s Cyril Abiteboul has responded angrily stating, ‘It’s difficult to have a partner who lies.’
He added, ‘Adrian is a charming man and an engineer without parallel, but he’s spent his life criticising engine partners. He’s too old to change his ways’
Abiteboul was keen to emphasise faults in both partners’ realms and to expect better performance in Malaysia in a Renault Press release on Tuesday, stating, ‘Our figures show that the lap time deficit between Red Bull and Mercedes in Melbourne was equally split between drivability issues, engine performance and chassis performance.’
The press release continued, It’s therefore the overall package that needs some help and we have been working with the team to move forward. We’ve been particularly aggressive in development and we should see the results, a lot more clearly in Malaysia, particularly since we have had the opportunity to refine the PU using the data from Australia.’
The Renault statement concluded, ‘Work is still ongoing but even now we are in a completely different place to where we finished Melbourne.’
Source
Sad to see so much fighting in F1. I dont know if I will keep on watching this. And that is a sad feeling.
