Renault F1 boss Cyril Abiteboul has explained where the company went wrong in initial development of the V6 hybrid engines.
The French manufacturer had pushed hard for the implementation of hybrid engines, citing the changing approach in road cars to hybrid systems and smaller capacity units with turbos.
It was remarkable then that the company ended up so far behind Mercedes and Ferrari in 2014, with a gap that still remains significant to this day.
“We did not invest enough or hire the right people in time. We were so fixated on the V8 engine that we simply forgot about the future and that was a big mistake,” Abiteboul told Holland’s Formule 1.
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“At the start of 2014, one error followed another. I was a Renault customer myself and I can tell you that they were really behind when it came to understanding the concept and the development of the engine.”
Abiteboul himself had left Renault for Caterham in 2012 citing what he considered the “wrong direction” taken not to focus on the hybrid regulations, only to return in his current role in 2014 and later ousting now-Alfa Romeo boss Fred Vasseur.
During the hybrid era, however, the Frenchman had to deal with an unhappy customer in Red Bull, who eventually switched to Honda for this season due to their strained relationship.
“I understood their frustrations to a certain extent,” he admits. “By then, Red Bull was used to success and it ended for them, but criticising in the media doesn’t solve anything at all.
“Eventually it reached a point where it was not only criticism of our product, but also of the Renault brand. For us, that went too far.”