LONDON: Renault is making good progress on the engine faults that plagued the four-day Formula One test in Spain a fortnight ago but is still behind schedule, according to media reports.
The problems affected all three Renault-powered teams in Jerez, with champions Red Bull forced to end the first pre-season test of the season early having barely completed any laps.
Mercedes-powered cars accounted for 875 laps in Spain while the Renault equivalent only managed 151.
Renault supplies Red Bull, Toro Rosso, Caterham and Lotus although the latter did not take part in the tests.
The French supplier has been working hard on a fix and is confident its teams will spend more time on the track in testing in Bahrain next week.
“Mainly we were facing hardware issues and consequently also software issues,” head of track operations Remi Taffin was quoted as saying on Friday.
“The first one was the energy store problem. We have had good upgrades that we could test … and everything worked as expected.”
Formula One has a new ‘power unit’ – a 1.6 litre V6 turbo with complex energy recovery systems – this season to replace the tried and tested 2.4-litre V8 engines.
Since the problems in Jerez, Renault has run promotional days with Lotus and Toro Rosso with mixed success and, while Taffin said they were still behind schedule, it was not as bad as first thought. (Reuters)