It was a disappointing weekend for Renault F1 Team as Team Principal Cyril Abiteboul admitted that Austria ‘exposed weaknesses’.
Abiteboul was left frustrated after neither Daniel Ricciardo or Nico Hülkenberg failed to score points at the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg and their zero points total for the weekend makes it their fourth non scoring race of the season.
Renault have found it difficult to find any sort of form so far this season and their miserable weekend in Austria was made worse when rival team McLaren F1 Team extended their lead over the French outfit in the Constructors Championship.
The McLaren result will have hit Renault even harder knowing they provide the British team with their engine.
However, Abiteboul knows the team had a tough weekend but insisted the pace was there: “Clearly, it’s not a good weekend. Although we had the pace to be slightly higher up on the grid, the track exposed weaknesses of our car, similar to previous races but in a more exacerbated fashion this weekend.”
Neither of Renault’s drivers managed to make it through to qualifying session three and both of them struggled to find their sweet spot all weekend.
Daniel Ricciardo qualified in twelfth and managed to regain the position on the last lap after overtaking his teammate Nico Hülkenberg, who’d started the day in fifteenth position on the grid.
With the ever-increasing pressure on Abiteboul, the team principal knows he has to find a solution to the team’s current problems quickly: “We need to identify if there was anything specific with set-ups or simply a feature of the chassis on which we must work.”
Up next on the calendar is the British Grand Prix and a chance to find some pace on one of the most historic circuits on the grid.
Renault know they need to improve quickly and Silverstone could be their perfect opportunity to regain some lost form.
