(Renault Sport F1)
Renault Sport F1 head into this weekend's Formula One season finale following what has been by their standards a disappointing year/ The French manufacturer dominated Formula One from 2010 to 2013 winning four consecutive drivers and constructors championships with Infiniti Red Bull Racing and Sebastian Vettel.
However this season Renault have struggled with the new 1.6 V6 turbocharged power units. Infiniti Red Bull Racing have scored all of Renault's eleven podium finishes including three Grand Prix victories for Daniel Ricciardo having won in Canada, Hungary and Belgium.
At the Yas Marina circuit last season Infiniti Red Bull Racing powered by Renault dominated the event with Mark Webber taking pole position while Sebastian Vettel took victory ahead of the Australian to give the Milton Keynes based outfit their fourth 1-2 finish of the season.
Speaking ahead of this weekend's race in Abu Dhabi, Renault's Head of Track Operations Remi Taffin stated:
'After a long and tough season we’ve finally reached the concluding race of 2014. Abu Dhabi is a fantastic place to end the year, with state-of-the-art facilities, a warm welcome, and a challenging circuit. It’s somewhat similar to Melbourne in terms of track characteristics, which will give us a representative comparison and show how far we’ve come over the course of the year.
For example, the long back straight will demonstrate what we have learnt about energy release and recovery. In Melbourne we were asking drivers to lift at the end of the straights to save fuel and battery power; having improved PU efficiency, we can recover enough through the MGU-K andMGU-H to avoid this. Effectively, the driver is flat throughout the lap.
The introduction of turbocharged V6 engines represented a big step into the unknown. Although Renault Sport F1 has a fantastic history with this kind of engine architecture, the new technologies enabling us to harvest energy produced by the electric motors on the turbo and the crankshaft (the old KERS system) presented a very different challenge.
The art of developing mechanical architecture is the foundation of an F1 Power Unit and a known strength of Viry-Chatillon. However, we have had to quickly learn how to improve the reliability of other PU components that we’ve taken onboard this year, such as the Energy Store and e-Turbo.
Having put almost 90,000 racing kilometres on the PU and seen its operation in a competitive environment, we’ve been able to iron out a lot of the teething problems that are encountered when introducing a brand new engine. This has allowed us to better manage reliability and modify certain components to make them more robust. The chassis teams have also been able to learn a great deal about the integration of such a PU, especially when it comes to cooling.
Another major step has stemmed from improvements made to the engine and energy management control, and to the base engine calibration. This has improved drivability and the efficiency of energy recovery/release, allowing maximum power output for a longer period on straights.
On a different note, we are very pleased to see that Caterham F1 Team will be competing at this weekend’s race following their recent difficulties. Hopefully this will allow them to regroup over the winter and return stronger in 2015.'
© Ben Johnston 2014
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