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Renault expects 'anxious' Australian Grand Prix

Renault's pre-season was hampered by numerous issues for all its teams © Sutton Images

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Renault admits Melbourne will be an "anxious weekend" after its teams failed to complete their objectives in Bahrain.

While Mercedes and, to a lesser extent, Ferrari has excelled in pre-season, Renault's problems have been well documented, with their customer teams suffering a host of reliability issues in Jerez and the two Bahrain tests. Renault is confident it has started to turn a corner but deputy managing director Rob White insists reliability is still his prime concern at this stage.

"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," White said. "Melbourne will be an anxious weekend! Conducting a normal race weekend, in which both cars run well during each session for every team, would be a great relief. I hope we can support our teams and drivers to explore the performance of the car and allow the race to deliver its sporting verdict."

Renault has less than two weeks to rectify the lingering issues and White admits they have a big check list to cover in that time.

"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. Second, we must progress further on the torque delivery of the PU [power unit] felt by the drivers. This will include software and calibration work, with simulator and dyno and validation. Thirdly there is the logistical challenge of getting the race Power Units built and shipped to Australia. That process is well under way and will be finished next week."

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