Renault have identified three reasons as to why their season didn’t go as planned and why they failed to make as big a step forward as many believed they might.
Looking back at their trying season, which not only saw unreliability and a lack of performance compared to Mercedes and Ferrari, but a major falling out with partner Red Bull, director of operations Remi Taffin explained what he believes was the cause.
“We arrived at the first winter test believing that we had made a big step forward between seasons,” he explained.
“We genuinely thought that we had done a good job. It was the case in certain areas, but we were caught out in three principal ways.
“The first was a significant reliability problem with the pistons. We had not seen the particular issue in any of the testing conducted and all the parts were signed off in the usual way.”
Renault were able to fix the piston problem with a late upgrade, which cured much of their early reliability troubles, however it wasn’t the only reason behind their difficult year.
“The other issue was that we had another part inside the PU electronics that we could not put our finger on and it continued to be a source of problems.
“The final element is that we braked so late for 2015, taking decisions until the last possible moment.
“The specification of PU for the first race was determined very late in the day and quite simply we braked too late, and we weren’t ready.”
Taffin is confident they have learnt from their mistakes this season and they won’t be repeated in 2016, when Renault will not only supply Red Bull – branded as Tag Heuer – but their own team following a takeover of Lotus.
“We wanted to make up the gap so badly that we pulled the rug out from under our own feet…
“But this particular cocktail of problems did allow us to learn a lot and make sure that the same issues will not reoccur in the future.”
