Laurent Rossi knows how to solve 60-70% of Renault’s engine reliability problems next year

The Alpine drivers did not score any points this season in 31% of the Grand Prix races. While in some cases, contacts caused damage to the Alpine car, in the majority of cases, it was mechanical issues that were to blame. Nevertheless, the Enstone team achieved its best performance since 2013, when it was called Lotus. This is enough to make Laurent Rossi happy and optimistic for the future.

“We’ve hit on something… we’ve had three or four different problems this season, including a major one which is the water pump and has consistently handicapped us,” explained Laurent Rossi on Canal+ microphone.

According to the director, Alpine’s retirements were mainly caused by a water pump issue linked to the Renault 2022 engine architecture.

« It costs us 60 to 70% of the DNF this season. It’s the innovative concept that we chose that clearly isn’t suitable, so we’re going to change and switch to something more classic and robust. » He explains. « Architecturally, it’s almost impossible to fix this issue. »

The Renault engine will therefore be made more reliable this winter in order to maintain good performance and gain in reliability. Rossi explains that the engine architecture for 2022 allows for optimizing the space taken up by the engine under the hood and thus improving aerodynamics. However, to solve the water pump problem, Alpine will have to lose some engine compactness and therefore make some compromises aerodynamically.

« Since we’ve made quite a few strides in aerodynamics, what we will lose in compactness, we will compensate for with aerodynamics, so we should fix a huge portion of the flaws.

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Laurent Rossi did not mention the other reliability issues, but he seems confident in also resolving these problems gradually over the course of the Grand Prix, considering that other engine manufacturers have taken nearly 3 or 4 seasons to reach a good level of reliability.

After the other faults, it’s something quite commonplace, especially in the early years of engine development. We are the only ones to have had a new engine this season. Whereas the others took about 3-4 seasons to iron out the kinks, and some even had problems with their engine this year, and not long ago, so it’s part of the game and it was the gamble.

In 2022, the engines have been frozen in terms of their architecture. Therefore, they cannot be changed or improved unless the modification relates to a reliability issue. Tokens are available and can be used within this framework after validation by the FIA.

It is with this perspective in mind that Rossi took the gamble to increase the engine’s performance and solve the reliability issues, and he is pleased with a winning bet, allowing him to secure the 4th place among constructors, the team’s best result since the 2013 season, when they were still branded as Lotus.

« The bet was to prioritize performance, otherwise we wouldn’t be talking about the 4th place today [in the standings, editor’s note], we would have a very friendly and reliable engine in 5th place. It’s a risky bet, we fully embraced it and it’s paying off.

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