A lighter and more reliable MGU-K for Renault

Solidly established in fourth place in the Constructors’ Championship, Renault continues its development, both on its chassis and its engine. It is the latter that received the main upgrade this weekend as a brand new MGU-K was installed on the cars of Nico Hülkenberg and Carlos Sainz.

After two practice sessions, Bob Bell, the team’s technology director, expressed his satisfaction when he sat down with the press: « The car has been reliable. The installation of the new MGU-K went very well. It is lighter, which allows us more flexibility with the ballast, and it should be a bit more reliable. » The issue of weight is particularly sensitive for Nico Hülkenberg since the German, taller than his teammate Carlos Sainz, is heavier. The mass balance inside his car is therefore more sensitive.

If Renault has made this new element available to its two client teams but they have chosen not to install it for the time being for integration reasons: « They have decided not to use it but it’s their choice. There is a lot of work to be done on the chassis to integrate it, and Red Bull and McLaren have decided to wait a bit so they are ready from a chassis point of view. » One of the reasons also suggested is that the other two teams may suffer less from weight than the Enstone team.

It has been mentioned by some of our colleagues that Renault now has the Party Mode in qualifying, similar to what Mercedes has been able to do since the beginning of the season. But this is not the terminology that the Renault engineer would use for the functioning of their engine in qualifying: « I think Renault was a bit behind on this topic, but we are making up some of our delay. There are certain modes we will develop during the season that we can use in all laps. Other modes can only be used in certain laps. These restrictions can change during the season depending on the confidence we have in the operating mode. »

In this context, the goal can only be to make it into Q3: « It’s clearly the objective. We have a good chance of doing it because we’ve done it regularly this season. It will be tight because the circuit is small. The margins will be very small. »

From our special correspondent in Austria