Renault managing director Cyril Abiteboul admits the emphasis is on reliability over performance with the initial 2018 engine which will start the new season.
Last year, the French manufacturer struggled to fix the problems with their overhauled design and in fact faced a shortage of parts in the final races following a spate of failures across the three teams which used them.
With the number of elements restricted even further for 2018, though the team at Viry are confident they have made progress during the winter, Abiteboul conceded it was not worth jeopardising the whole year early on.
“We have decided voluntarily to make some compromises for engine number one in order to make sure that we have got the right platform,” he told Autosport.
“If you come to the first race and you start to have reliability problems, then that is not just that race – it compromises the whole season. You cannot afford to do that.”
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Given the power deficit of recent years, to hear the Renault unit won’t be at its maximum potential could concern their two customers, McLaren and Red Bull, with the latter particularly desperate to challenge Mercedes and Ferrari for the title this year.
As Abiteboul explained, however: “It is about setting the right baseline and building a plan for the season – trying, in particular, to synchronise development at the factory with the introduction of new engines because we are very limited.
“The fewer engines you have the more rigid you need to be in the implementation of performance. So the focus is very much on reliability.”
