Friday, 18 July 2014

Renault Sport F1 Review of Friday Practice from Hokenheim

Renault Sport German Grand Prix Practice Report
(Renault Sport F1)

This weekend sees Formula One return to the power of circuit of Hockenheim for the German Grand Prix for the first time since 2012 as the German Grand Prix alternates between the Nurburgring and the Hockenheimring.

Today saw Infiniti Red Bull Racing's Daniel Ricciardo finish the second session as best of the rest behind the Mercedes duo of Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg which bodes well for the rest of the weekend. Renault have also brought an engine upgrade for Red Bull Racing which Daniel Ricciardo and all of the Renault powered teams were also running today.

Speaking following the concludion of today's action, Renault Sport F1's Head of Track Operations Remi Taffin said:

'Today has been a very interesting day from a Power Unit point of view. We ran the latest wave of software across all cars and the improvements have been noticeable in the ICE output power. We were confident that the software would work well after trialing at the Silverstone test and yet again we have seen the results corroborated here today. We also expect a further step tomorrow when we have looked at all the data thoroughly.

Of course the main talking point has been the heat. Both ambient and track temperatures have been higher than we have seen in previous years – in fact the highest of the season so far – but the cooling systems have coped remarkably well. We have used a variety of solutions, including different settings and parts usage and didn’t experience any problems on this front.

Unfortunately the Caterham cars had a couple of issues: with Marcus [Ericsson] there was a drop off in oil pressure in FP2, but this one was tackled very quickly so he was able to run the last third of the session. Equally Kamui Kobayashi’s car developed a fuel leak and with the bodywork being so hot everything ignited very quickly. The team is looking at the damage now – fortunately it was an old engine though – but everyone still needs to look at where the leak came from to prevent it happening again.

Otherwise it has been a busy day, and we look forward to tomorrow when we’ll trial the new fuel from Total on most cars that should give another good step in engine performance.'

© Ben Johnston 2014 

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