Renault Power Unit Hardware & Software

[ENGINE TUNER]

I've been looking for an article I read from a link on the forum, annoying I can't find it now.

Anyway it was a Renault engineer talking about the long awaited engine upgrade, it mentions a 5kg weight saving, 1kg of which was due to the removal on an air bottle needed for cooling.

I've noticed these before in shots of striped down cars, or pics of a mangles chassis after a crash, what are these air bottles used for exactly ?

That was an MGUK upgrade If I remember. No power increase just lighter weight.

But what does the air bottle cool exactly ?

The V8 cars used to have "air bottles" for the pneumatic valves but I don't know of any other "air bottles" on board these cars.

[MrPotatoHead]

Aah so not only delayed but also worse than planned. Renault still not delivering

Luckily for Renault Honda are making them look good...

[wuzak]

That was an MGUK upgrade If I remember. No power increase just lighter weight.

But what does the air bottle cool exactly ?

The V8 cars used to have "air bottles" for the pneumatic valves but I don't know of any other "air bottles" on board these cars.

They still have pneumatic valve return.

[ringo]

Air is used in high power circuit breakers. This may be the case with the MGUK?
I'm just guessing. Maybe an electrical engineer can enlighten us as it relates to the f1 electrical.

[lio007]

What's wrong with Renault? Any "major" improvement this year, only small bits "every race":
http://en.f1i.com/news/270639-abiteboul ... -year.html

What about all the comments at the beginning of this season, that they will catch up the class leading PU by the end of the season. And RBR has the chance to fight for the Championship.

[ME4ME]

What really, REALLY annoys me is this:

"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."

They already had their big concept change this year. That's their only excuse for all the unreliability issues they're currently having.

- They have failed to close the performance gap to Mercedes
- They have turned a reliable unit into a unreliable one
- They are going for another concept next year, which will likely introduce further unreliability

[yener]

So the lighter MGU-K is still giving problems? No big updates this season?
Seriously.. what the hell are they doing at Renault? And don't start about Honda, because they have a total different concept.
So next year another battle between Ferrari and Merc.

[lio007]

Absolutely....
Another lost year for the Renault-powered teams.

[drunkf1fan]

What really, REALLY annoys me is this:

"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."

They already had their big concept change this year. That's their only excuse for all the unreliability issues they're currently having.

- They have failed to close the performance gap to Mercedes
- They have turned a reliable unit into a unreliable one
- They are going for another concept next year, which will likely introduce further unreliability

While performance is just no where near where it should be with RBR finishing on average over 40 seconds behind the leader(excluding Monaco from that number because, Monaco), is it unreliable?

RBR have had failures yet have still used only 2 of each engine part same now as everyone else. Max's car stopped but with no electrical power, it's not necessarily a Renault failure. Even back in 2014 RBR had far more failures in testing than the smaller Renault teams, many of them electrical same way some of Honda's failures have been electrical but their own car rather than the engine.

The renault using teams aren't using significantly more engines than anyone else nor more than last year at the same point are they?

Like I said though, the performance is no where near where it needs to be. With news out of Renault that no major updates to 2018, it's hard to see where or how any Renault teams will make a big step through the rest of this year.

I'm semi hopeful for 2018 though, it seems to me funding increased significantly after they bought Lotus. If it was me in charge there I'd spend a lot of money on a concurrent program, put some added money into making shorter term improvements but get investing in a longer term, maybe 2 year plan for really significant improvements. HAlf of Honda's problems is chasing the current engine, constantly trying to get what they've got working better and ultimately this new engine of theirs was another rushed engine only really started midway through last season so it's not a surprise it turned out worse. If Renault wanted to avoid that same fate putting smaller resources towards small updates of that engine and a big portion of new resources to a massive update for 2018 would be very sensible.

It would make even more sense as Renault's works car would take a couple of years to really build up the team and get a really good car. I have no idea if they did that, nothing makes me think it, I'm just hopeful that someone over there is playing the long game and next year could see way more competition.

[ME4ME]

While performance is just no where near where it should be with RBR finishing on average over 40 seconds behind the leader(excluding Monaco from that number because, Monaco), is it unreliable?

RBR have had failures yet have still used only 2 of each engine part same now as everyone else. Max's car stopped but with no electrical power, it's not necessarily a Renault failure. Even back in 2014 RBR had far more failures in testing than the smaller Renault teams, many of them electrical same way some of Honda's failures have been electrical but their own car rather than the engine.

The renault using teams aren't using significantly more engines than anyone else nor more than last year at the same point are they?

Like I said though, the performance is no where near where it needs to be. With news out of Renault that no major updates to 2018, it's hard to see where or how any Renault teams will make a big step through the rest of this year.

For this season Renault have introduced their 2nd generation ERS, developed in conjunction with Infiniti. What's come of that? The 2017-MGU-K is as far as I am aware still too unreliable to race. The battery? They have had several faults, including Sirotkin and Palmers' in Russia, and now seemingly Max's race ending failure in Canada. There have been serveral other failures, which I do not have kept track off. Also all 3 teams have confirmed to run conservativly to increase reliability. To me, there is no question that Renault are far from where they were last year reliability-wise.

[lio007]

And I don't get it either why he says the new concept has so much potential and (big) gains are expected over the course of the season.
But reality is they constantly reduce the expectations for improvements.

It'd be very interesting what's going on behind the scenes
- why promote a "new" improved ERS over the winter, just to recognize it's nowhere near race-ready during testing
- why promote reliability fixes are in place for Melbourne, just to recognize it's still nowhere near race-ready
- and so on...

So, their (or Abiteboul's) communication is not that much better than RB's.
Although I think RB is sometimes forced to some 'bad communication', as called by Abiteboul, because why should someone say there will be an upgrade in Baku if there are any confirmations from your engine supplier?

[lio007]

ok, now he's saying

It's not going to happen this year, it's not going to happen even next year, because now the gap has reduced in such a way that it's all going to be about small, small steps that eventually will bridge the gap to the leaders.

And then in the same interview...

There will be continuous small steps, and there is also a healthy step that we are trying to build-up for next year, and as we speak, we are already well advanced for next year's engine, which is representing a certain innovation in one particular area – or several areas.

I really don't understand this guy, in the last couple of weeks he said, in 2018 there will be the promising new concept.
and now "it's not going to happen even next year" !?

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/f1-e ... 19118/?s=1

[baybars]

ok, now he's saying

It's not going to happen this year, it's not going to happen even next year, because now the gap has reduced in such a way that it's all going to be about small, small steps that eventually will bridge the gap to the leaders.

And then in the same interview...

There will be continuous small steps, and there is also a healthy step that we are trying to build-up for next year, and as we speak, we are already well advanced for next year's engine, which is representing a certain innovation in one particular area – or several areas.

I really don't understand this guy, in the last couple of weeks he said, in 2018 there will be the promising new concept.
and now "it's not going to happen even next year" !?

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/f1-e ... 19118/?s=1

Also I Don't understand. I can understand two different comment in two different interview But He said opposite things in same interview

[wuzak]

ok, now he's saying

It's not going to happen this year, it's not going to happen even next year, because now the gap has reduced in such a way that it's all going to be about small, small steps that eventually will bridge the gap to the leaders.

And then in the same interview...

There will be continuous small steps, and there is also a healthy step that we are trying to build-up for next year, and as we speak, we are already well advanced for next year's engine, which is representing a certain innovation in one particular area – or several areas.

I really don't understand this guy, in the last couple of weeks he said, in 2018 there will be the promising new concept.
and now "it's not going to happen even next year" !?

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/f1-e ... 19118/?s=1

He is talking about big steps in performance not happening this year or next.

Not that there won't be development or performance improvements.

[GhostF1]

He said this year's engine was full of innovations as well?

He's a master at promising the world without giving an exact deadline so it gets drawn out.

He's also the only manufacturer that has publicly stated there are improvements at each race. Unfortunately for him, that's true for every single manufacturer. No one is sitting still. He's just pandering to the media.