No Plans for Renault to Introduce Upgrades Until 2018

At the recently concluded Canadian GP, Red Bull driver Daniel Ricciardo placed 3rd in the race to take the final podium spot ahead of both Ferrari drivers. But it has to be said that Ricciardo was lucky that misfortune befell on their Italian rivals. Teammate Max Verstappen has admitted that he is ‘fed up’ with the reliability issues. However, Renault boss Cyril Abiteboul has shut down suggestions that a major upgrade is to be introduced at Baku. Instead, he said that all major upgrades will be concentrated on the 2018 cars.

Red Bull were confident that an engine upgrade was coming for the race in Azerbaijan, but Abiteboul clarified their comments, saying that there was nothing major planned until 2018. However, he did say that there will always be updates being added to the cars. “There are upgrades permanently — every single race we are making some small improvements. Last year we created a huge expectation and we came with an upgrade that had a big impact. But we can’t repeat that every year.” said the Frenchman. “Now it is all about constant improvements which overall will make a difference — but there is no magic bullet. Every race the engine will become more and more reliable with the program on the dyno progressing. Frankly the next big upgrade will be next year. Then we will have a completely new concept. That will make a difference — but as I said 2018.” he added.

Red Bull team boss Christian Horner even joked that they would go to church everyday to pray for an update to the Renault engine.