Renault F1 Deny ‘Party Mode’ Reports

F1 engine supplier Renault have downplayed talks of a “party mode” engine boost at the Austrian GP. They say that they have made small improvements, but is not at the same level as Mercedes’ upgrades.

Renault have closed the gap to Mercedes and Ferrari in terms of power. However, they are sorely lacking on Saturdays. Especially when their rivals have the ability to launch a “party mode” power boost during qualifying.

Fortunately, they are taking steps to close the gap to Mercedes and Ferrari. But, they have played down the impact of their latest engine upgrade.

“I’m not quite sure I’d describe our qualifying opportunity as a ‘party mode’ in the same league as what was previously run by other engine manufacturers,” chief technical officer Bob Bell said.

“No, we have some improvements to the engine that come on a race by race basis, we’re always finding new ways with these engines to operate them to find a little bit more performance.

“I think Renault has been a little bit behind the curve on that but we’re starting to pick it up now and we’ve got a small improvement but it’s not night and day stuff.”

Bell said that Renault have more confidence in running their engines at their highest power setting for several laps. They know this, having tested it on the dyno earlier.

He said, “It depends what mode you’re talking about. There are some modes that we can develop over the course of the season that will be available to us on all laps.

“Some you might only want to run them for two to three laps so you’d only use them in qualifying and those limitations can themselves change over the course of the season, so as we get more confidence in a new operating mode, as we get more validation data from the track and dyno we may open out the mileage restrictions on them so we start conservative and then open the window.”