Renault have admitted that they have discovered a fundamental issue with their power unit which requires changing ahead of testing on Thursday.
However, the supplier also suggested that Red Bull in particular are causing further problems in the way they have packaged the unit in their RB10.
In an impromptu press conference, called because of the limited running carried out by Renault-powered cars, the company’s head of trackside operations, Remi Taffin, explained that changes would be made overnight to ensure its customers can complete some running on Thursday.
“The fact is obviously we are facing many problems, there are many problems when we have new cars, new power units and that could be different from one team to another,” he told reporters including The F1 Times.
“We have decided to do as much as we could on our side to make sure that for tomorrow, particularly Toro Rosso and Red Bull, can take to the track at nine o’clock and we’re confident we can have all three teams on-track.”
When pushed on the exact cause of Red Bull’s engine fire, Taffin insisted it was nothing to do with the design of the power unit, instead he hinted that Red Bull’s car design may have been the cause.
“No,” he replied. “You may need to ask my colleagues at Red Bull [what caused that problem].
“It’s the different intergration [between teams],” he added, suggesting Red Bull are packaging the unit differently to Toro Rosso and Caterham.
It’s believed Red Bull aren’t providing enough cooling to certain areas of the power unit, particularly the energy recovery system. This could have caused the brief fire which curtailed their running.
Red Bull have completed just 11 laps over two days, whilst Toro Rosso has done 15 (all on Tuesday) and Caterham 12 (all but one on Wednesday).
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