McLaren encouraged by Renault engine development
- Farhan Khurram
- Dec 23, 2018
- 2 min read
McLaren believes that Renault has found "a lot of kilowatts" as the progress of its 2019 engine continues ahead of the car launch and the pre-season testing in February.
McLaren CEO Zack Brown was talking to media outlets on Wednesday and hinted out that his team was encouraged and optimistic regarding the performance gains by Renault in its 2019 engine development.
"They are telling us that they are very pleased with their winter progress,"
"They have found a lot of kilowatts, and think they will be in the ballpark." said Zack Brown.
Although he hesitated from sharing any further details regarding the development. As he continued, "It is not appropriate for me to quote the numbers they have given us, but I think they feel they are going to be very competitive next year."
McLaren had a turbulent 2018 campaign with multiple retirements over the course of the season. A nil performance and a spree of DNFs partially contributed to Alonso's decision of quitting Formula 1 at the end of the season. Stoffel Vandoorne also suffered from aerodynamics issues plaguing his car, a fact that was confirmed by both Fernando as well as Brown earlier in the season.
Although, McLaren admits to the fact that the team cannot come up with a solution to all of its woes overnight and prepare a car ready to take on a harder challenger for 2019, Brown did point out that the feedback from the engineers has been highly positive.
It is expected that any advancement in performance and gains in reliability for McLaren will be a huge step up. The team is already looking forward to improvements in all the domains to have a better challenger for the upcoming season.
Brown told the media, "There is a lot of cautious optimism, but we clearly don't want to get ahead of ourselves," and that "We have done that before and we are not going to make the same mistake twice.
"So it is a very head down approach. Development is going well, and we are on track with what we are wanting to achieve.
Brown further added to his statements, "But ultimately obviously we have no idea where the competition is, other than speculating. Everyone plants their different stories: they either want to under play it or over play it. I don't think we will obviously know until we get to Barcelona.
"We are pleased with the progress we have made. We have done things differently, everyone is working well together, so it feels like a more quiet confidence.
"But we are on our toes. We know this is an important year for us to show progress and that comes with some exciting nervous energy."
The Woking based team is yet to announce the launch date of its MCL34 for 2019.
Originally published by the Motorsport. Click here
Farhan Khurram
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In his own words, “A nature photographer, avid writer & 3D designer. Formula 1 & Aviation gets my adrenaline rush.”
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