Pit stop improvements key for Renault in 2018
After Renault’s pit ওstop nightmare in Abu Dhabi almost cost the French manufacturer sixtꦫh place in the 2017 Formula 1 World Constructors’ championship, team boss Cyril Abiteboul is overseeing a restructuring process for next season.
After Renault’s pit༺ stop nightmare in Abu Dhabi almost cost the French manufacturer sixth place in the 2017 Formula 1 World Constructors’ championshܫip, 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 seventh place on the opening lap of the Abu Dh🃏abi 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 h✨it Carlos Sainz Jr when his front-left tyr⛦e wasn’t fitted properly and he was forced to retire from the race. The team were also landed with a fine for an unsafe release for 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’ജ 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 the wintꦗer and we are restructuring the organisation a bit to focus on that.
“The wheel nut for next year has already been desi﷽gned because we don’t want any 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 point꧒s) and Renault scored just eight points all seaso🔯n compared to winners Mercedes with a total of 472 points in 2017.
