Renault are hoping to put their reliability problems behind them after yet more failures during the Bahrain Grand Prix.
The engine supplier hasn’t had the best start to the season with both Red Bull and Toro Rosso facing multiple failures over the opening four races.
Max Verstappen stopped during the race with an eletrical issue on the power unit side whilst Daniel Ricciardo’s unit blew at the very last corner of the last lap, allowing him to coast across the finish line.
“It wasn’t a memorable weekend for us in any way, but we did what we needed to do,” said managing director Cyril Abiteboul.
Renault chose to turn its engines down in a bid to avoid failures, aware of a deep rooted problem at the previous race in China.
Due to the back-to-back nature of the two races, they were unable to implement a fix. But Abiteboul says that will change before the next race in Spain.
“We came here aware of the risks from the previous race, and considering the starting positions, sixth and ninth is the best we could have hoped for with Red Bull today,” he added.
“Another engine problem is definitely not what we wanted to see, but I will take as a positive sign that it was at the very end and did not impact the final result of Daniel.
“Reliability has been our Achilles Heel since the last two races, but with 18 days to go before the first session in Spain, we have the time to introduce the more permanent fixes we have in the pipeline and start making the performance steps we are all keen to make.”