Renault still far from meeting expectations in Shanghai
Despite Daniel Ricciardo's seventh place in Shanghai, the Renaults still seem far from being considered midfield benchmarks.
This weekend in Shanghai was once again not favorable for Renault, as they had to resign themselves to seeing one of their cars not cross the finish line. Indeed, it was on the 16th lap that Nico Hülkenberg was forced to bring his car back to the garage due to an engine software error. His teammate, Daniel Ricciardo, managed to bring back 6 points, synonymous with 7th place, but not without difficulty, as the Australian was closely chased throughout the race by Sergio Perez driving his Racing Point.
One of the few genuine consolations for the French team is the fact that they are less than 0.03 seconds behind Pierre Gasly’s Red Bull, who secured sixth position.
🎙 « C’est bien d’être dans le match, de voir l’arrivée et d’obtenir mes premiers points avec l’équipe. Nous allons en retirer du positif. »
Retrouvez ce que nos pilotes et Cyril Abiteboul ont à dire de leur #ChineseGP.
👉 https://t.co/126YBIfVRf#RSspirit #Race1000 pic.twitter.com/O8y0ZzJSL7— Renault F1 Team (@RenaultF1Team) April 14, 2019
Hülkenberg’s retirement is all the more concerning knowing that both Renaults retired in Bahrain. This brings the number of retirements to 3 compared to only 5 during the entire 2018 season. In addition to not being particularly reliable, the Viry-Chatillon engine does not seem to be performing well and is still quite far from the benchmarks set by Ferrari and Mercedes.
Nico Hülkenberg did not hide his disappointment at the finish: It’s clearly a disappointing race on our side. We came out into traffic after our stop and I felt a loss of power. We did our best to resolve what seemed to be a software-related issue, but it wasn’t possible, and we had to retire for good. We are analyzing the issue, but it appears to be related to the MGU-K. We have things to work on before the next race, and we will scrutinize everything to come back stronger.
The brand with the diamond still has a lot of progress to make if it wants to get closer to the level of the top teams and especially to break away from the very tight mid-field, which is nonetheless composed of teams with a smaller budget.
#ChineseGP: 🏁#RSspirit #Race1000 pic.twitter.com/tkHK6bwKlP
— Renault F1 Team (@RenaultF1Team) April 14, 2019
