Renault teams will be worried in Melbourne

The French manufacturer, which provides power units for Red Bull, Lotus, Toro Rosso and Caterham, have suffered from both hardware and software problems that have left them unable to complete scheduled programmes with all of their teams.

“We wanted each of our four teams to be able to approach a normal race weekend without having to improvise any of the procedures or operations needed,” says Renault Sport F1’s deputy managing director Rob White.

“But we can’t escape the fact that we did not complete the entire programme with all the teams and that some Melbourne preparations are incomplete.

“On the up-side, we have done some of everything, with simulations of qualifying sessions, starts, race distances and long stints. It’s fair to say that once again we have made some real progress.

“We have cured or worked around some of the problems we had previously identified. New problems that revealed themselves as we ran more have added to the unsolved items, and have disrupted running, which is disappointing for our teams.”

Renault completed the fewest miles of any of the three power unit manufacturers in pre-season testing. White admits that’s left them with a lengthy list of outstanding jobs.

“Between now and Melbourne we have a number of items to cover,” he said. “We need to consolidate all of the lessons learned across all the teams. We need to review all the accumulated data and compare and contrast to get the best out of it so the starting point for all of the Renault-powered cars is as good as it can be.”

Renault have made substantial progress since the first pre-season test in Spain. They have creasing the level of performance at which their power unit can be operated and the way the energy is managed round the circuit.

But White admits that Australia will be an ‘anxious’ race.