Carlos Sainz has admitted Renault’s lack of pace comes from underestimating the performance gains made by their rival engine suppliers this season.
The French manufacturer has struggled for results in recent races with the Spaniard scraping a 10th place finish in Japan this past weekend after passing Pierre Gasly in the closing laps.
It is also possible Suzuka signalled an embarrassing moment with Honda introducing a new upgrade which they claim has moved them ahead of Renault in the power stakes just as Red Bull prepares to ditch them after Abu Dhabi.
“There was probably a big setback with the engine side,” Sainz told Autosport. “We didn’t expect Ferrari and Mercedes to do such a big step through the year.
“We thought that the B-spec was probably going to be just enough, but we’ve seen at the moment that it is not enough.
“We brought things to the chassis – probably the chassis is not that bad – but on the top speed side we are not where we want to be.”
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Renault did continue development with a C-spec made available after the summer break but only Red Bull have used it amid fears it isn’t yet reliable enough.
“I fully back the team with whatever decision they take,” Sainz continued, referring to the decision to stick with the Spec-B.
“I just think we need more power, which we don’t have, and we don’t get it for whatever reason. If we wanted to be in Q3 in Japan we just needed more power, and Honda has shown that it is possible.”
