Pit stop improvements key for Renault in 2018
After Ren🍨ault’s pit stop nightmare in Abu Dhabi almost cost the French manufacturer sixth place in the 2017 Formula 1 World Constructors’ championship, team bꦿoss Cyril Abiteboul is overseeing a restructuring process for next season.
After Renault’s pit stop nightmare in Abu Dha🔯bi almost cost the French manufacturer sixth place in the 2017 Formula 1 World Coไnstructors’ championship, team boss Cyril Abiteboul is overseeing a restructuring process for next season.
With Renault needing to overhaul Toro Rosso’s four point lead at the 2017 season finale to take sixth place in the final teams’ standings, the French squad looked well set with Nico Hulkenberg in se🌠venth place on the op♛ening lap of the Abu Dhabi race. But the French manufacturer suffered two heart-in-mouth moments during its two pit stops of the race.
After Hulkenberg served his five-second time penalty for exceeding track limits when passing Sergio Perez, his crew lost vital time when struggling to remove his right-rear wheel which saw him drop down to 11th. A worse fate hit Carlos Sainz Jr when his front-left tyre wasn’t fitted properly and he was forced to retire from the race. The team were also landed with a fine for an unsa💖fe release foꦅr the Sainz stop.
Fortunately for Renault, Hulkenberg was able to charge up the order to finish in sixth place and with it leapfrog Toro Rosso in the teams’ championship to👍 bag the vital extra prize money. Speaking after the race, Abiteboul conceded Renault’s biggest issue alongside unreliability was pit stop speed and is set to introduce a new strategy from 2018.
“The pit stop has been one of the two big problems of the team this year together with reliability,” Abiteboul said. “So, that is one of the focuses of t🍨he winter and we are restructuring the organisation a bit to focus on that.
“The wheel nut for next yeꦡar has already been designed because we don’t want a𒊎ny of that anymore.”
Renault finished the season in ninth place in the DHL Fastest Pit Stop award and only ahead of back-markers Sauber. The award’s scoring system is modelled on the same points system for drivers finishing races (eg 1st – 25 points, 2nd – 18 points) and Renault scored just eight points all seasonꦡ compared to winners Meꦫrcedes with a total of 472 points in 2017.
