Ricciardo in big engine trouble

[Jordan Wilkins]

For Daniel Ricciardo and his Infiniti Red Bull-Renault team, it has been a very difficult start to the 2015 season. The Renault engine has proved to be under powered and unreliable, leading to increasingly public tensions between the two sides.

After a spectacular engine blow up in the final hundred meters of yesterday's Bahrain Grand Prix for Ricciardo, he now faces a very difficult rest of the season as Red Bull will be forced to fit his fourth Renault engine for the upcoming Spanish Grand Prix, only the fifth race of the 2015 F1 season.

This is a major problem for Ricciardo as under new regulations for this year, every driver can only use four major engine components throughout the year, to aid increased efficiency in Formula One. If one more major engine component fails for Ricciardo between now and the end of the season, he will be forced to take a grid penalty for every new engine part installed.

Going on the unreliability of the Renault power unit in the opening races, with the Malaysian Grand Prix the only race where Ricciardo was not forced to fit a new engine during the weekend, it seems almost certain Ricciardo will be forced to start taking grid penalties at several points this season.

For a team that is already struggling to compete for even top five positions, let alone wins, any further grid penalties would be another added obstacle for Ricciardo and Red Bull to overcome if they want to challenge for wins and podiums as they feel they should be.

What is clear at the moment is that Renault need to seriously improve their power unit if they want to even match Ferrari let along Mercedes, although at the same time Red Bull have not asserted themselves as the most prominent Renault powered team, with the junior Scuderia Toro Rosso team looking just as good as Red Bull in the opening four races.

In terms of going forward in the future, Red Bull and Renault have a long way to go to regain the competitive edge they enjoyed between 2010-2013, with this latest news of another engine change for lead driver Ricciardo only adding to their early season woes this season.

What are your thoughts on this setback for Ricciardo?

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

Engine problems have always been a part of the sport. I am happy I have still witnessed the era of the (blowing up) qualification engines and ....... nobody cared. The teams just put in a new engine and carried on.

Engine failures (and any failures in general) made the sport interesting to watch but with the new restrictive rules being in place it's going to work against those teams that really struggle with the Renault power unit. Adding a penalty on top will only make their problems worse.

 

[vee10]

I don't think anyone wins in this situation, least of all us the fans if drivers have to limit their mileage or not turn the wick up and manage their engines. Used to love when manufacturers brought a quali spec engine that detonated after so many miles but gave a extra few revs.

The supposed pinnacle of motorsport and yet they run out of engines to use, just does not sound right does it?

 

[Alberto Casado]

Sad for Ricciardo, but on the other hand its going to be a guaranteed out-of-place car very often, so more overtakes and comebacks to see.

Maybe F1 should start thinking in a NBA-draft-like assignment of the engine tokens (or testing). So the best performing engines get less chances to tune up, while the worst can do a serious make-over.

 

[P*Funk]

So they force a change over to extremely expensive new engine technology then limit their ability to deal with engine problems. Sure.

 

[R.J. O'Connell]

I commented on this in the post-race article - the detuned Renaults that STR had that made them pretty much irrelevant all race, something they hadn't been for the first three rounds - weren't even that reliable if Max Verstappen still retired with a power unit failure.

It's a mess.

 

[Joel]

Remember when we had Quali and Race engines

 

[R.J. O'Connell]

Yep. And by comparison, they were as reliable as a discount steering wheel controller in comparison to today's powerplants. That is including this generation of Renault and Honda PUs.

 

[Mark Aalberts]

Even if you give Renault 100 tokens, they are not going to close in on their opponents. Maybe they solve the reliability issues but I seriously doubt. I think in order to find more power they gone more aggressive and that's costing them engines now.

That engine has a fundamental flaw and problems that needs redesign to overcome. I don't see them closing in at all knowing that Honda is running with detuned engines and closing in on top10, Ferrari is coming with a big update on the engine as well and god knows what Mercedes comes up with.

The problem Max had was ERS related , he was asked to turn down the engine settings during the race. Renault will come with an update for Barcelona, lets hope they at least manage to solve the reliability issues.

 

[Tri Nguyen]

Engine problems have always been a part of the sport. I am happy I have still witnessed the era of the (blowing up) qualification engines and ....... nobody cared. The teams just put in a new engine and carried on.

Engine failures (and any failures in general) made the sport interesting to watch but with the new restrictive rules being in place it's going to work against those teams that really struggle with the Renault power unit. Adding a penalty on top will only make their problems worse.

Well, the problem is whilst Ferrari had a big step forward, to have only a little less power compared to Mercedes. And in 2015, Renault had a step back, in which that their engines have LESS power, much less reliability.

 

[Tri Nguyen]

Even if you give Renault 100 tokens, they are not going to close in on their opponents. Maybe they solve the reliability issues but I seriously doubt. I think in order to find more power they gone more aggressive and that's costing them engines now.

That engine has a fundamental flaw and problems that needs redesign to overcome. I don't see them closing in at all knowing that Honda is running with detuned engines and closing in on top10, Ferrari is coming with a big update on the engine as well and god knows what Mercedes comes up with.

The problem Max had was ERS related , he was asked to turn down the engine settings during the race. Renault will come with an update for Barcelona, lets hope they at least manage to solve the reliability issues.

That engine really need redesigns to overcome, whilst Renault's Chief Engine R&D claims "no need to redesign the whole engine, it's just a small problem

 

[StewartF1]

I just wish that there aren't any penalties for using these engines parts. I believe it is far enough of a penalty to a team and manufacturer to have their engine blow up mid race or pre race as Kyvat did in Melbourne. That will kill a team's success as effectively as a grid spot penalty would for using additional engines.

 

[P*Funk]

Well you're asking them to develop engines at the peak of technology and then to be extremely reliable at the same time. Seems rather contradictory and dissuasive to risk taking.

Conservatism is boring entertainment.