16/12/2015
NEWS STORY
Whilst we await news of its return as a constructor, having agreed a deal to buy-out the Lotus F1 team, Renault's engine operation insists that the mistakes made in 2015 will not be repeated.
"We arrived at the first winter test believing that we had made a big step forward between seasons," admitted Director of Operations, Remi Taffin. "We genuinely thought that we had done a good job.
"It was the case in certain areas," he told the official F1 website, "but we were caught out in three principal ways.
"The first was a significant reliability problem with the pistons. We had another part inside the PU electronics that we could not put our finger on and it continued to be a source of problems.
"The final element is that we braked so late for 2015, taking decisions until the last possible moment. The specification of PU for the first race was determined very late in the day and quite simply we braked too late, and we weren't ready. We wanted to make up the gap so badly that we pulled the rug out from under our own feet... but this particular cocktail of problems did allow us to learn a lot and make sure that the same issues will not reoccur in the future.
"We end the season much more knowledgeable and information-rich," he insists, "unfortunately we did not get the results we wanted, but everything has allowed us to prepare in the short term for 2016 and longer term beyond that. We are in much better shape now than we were at this point last year, for sure."
He also confirmed that Ilmor Engineering will be on board to assist with the development of the engine.
"They were able to bring different concepts to the table, such as a different combustion concept, and now we will continue with them into 2016," he said. "We will continue to develop a lot in-house but with partners such as Ilmor we have a greater bandwidth and a richer experience and expertise. We did not see the full extent of the collaboration in 2015 for various reasons, but now they are under our control and we have a clearer direction we should see this more in 2016 and beyond."