Renault Sport Formula 1 Team Managing Director Cyril Abiteboul is hoping to continue on the Enstone based squads good run of form of late, which has allowed them to pick up points at the last two rounds of the season, with driver Nico Hulkenberg.
Like many F1 teams, Renault will be introducing some updates to the RS17 in Spain, and Abiteboul hopes this will help the team to make even further progress.
“Barcelona is an event where we often see many upgrades to the cars and we have some new parts ourselves. We’ve had a solid run of points in the past two races and we want to continue that.”
The Frenchman confirmed that Renault Sport Academy driver Sergey Sirotkin would be given another chance to drive the RS17 during FP1 in Spain, after disaster struck at his home round of Russia, when a gearbox problem ended his session after just two laps.
“At Barcelona, we will see Sergey Sirotkin in the car again for FP1, although this time we are hoping he gets far more laps under his belt, following an unfortunate gearbox issue for him in Sochi.”
Abiteboul is happy with the progress made by the Enstone based team so far, and is looking to make further steps forward as the season goes on.
“On both the chassis and power unit side, we have shown a good step forward in performance so we need to ensure we can harness this reliably at every opportunity.”
With such a tightly packed midfield, the competition this year is much greater, but that only makes Renault more determined to succeed, and come out ahead of their rivals.
Abiteboul is certainly looking forward to taking it to Renault’s competitors in Spain this weekend.
“The 2017 season has certainly captured the imagination of the public and we are right in the middle of a very exciting midfield fight with some very determined opponents. This gives us all good motivation to take the fight to these rivals and we can’t wait to hit the track in Spain.”
