Red Bull Racing is not pleased with the attitude of Renault during the German Grand Prix. Daniel Ricciardo received a grid penalty and immediately wanted to replace all possible engine parts. Renault delivered only three of the six desired parts.
This happened before the Australian outburst on Sunday, but did produce some crooked faces in the Red Bull camp. Because of the rigid attitude of Renault, the team was unable to 'benefit' optimally from the collected grid penalty. Ricciardo was already behind and could therefore better of all remaining parts - including the V6 combustion engine, turbo and MGU-H - a new assembly. This could have prevented future grid penalties.
However, Renault had already decided not to deliver these parts to Ricciardo at Hockenheim. When Red Bull Racing team boss Christian Horner was asked about the remarkable news before the race, he expressed his frustration. "That is a question for Renault, as the normal strategy would indeed be to replace all possible parts at once."
'Afterwards it's easy to talk'
It seems to be the first expression of dissatisfaction among the French, after it became known that Red Bull Renault will trade for Honda in 2019. Renault frontman Cyril Abiteboul does not want to know anything about this. "We first have to find out what happened here, and there was no reason at that time to exchange the ICE, for example," he says in conversation with Motorsport.com. "It is comparable to talking after a race, it is also easy to talk and you can reinvent the wheel on for example the strategy in rain or dry weather."
Abiteboul also wishes to emphasize that the incident had nothing to do with the availability of the parts. "There is nothing wrong with the availability of parts, first of all we are just in between two versions of the power source and then it is better to wait for Spec C [the new version]", he explains that Renault would prefer to needs to deliver updated version. "Secondly, in terms of mileage, this power source also had sufficient life span to be able to save it to Spec C."
Abiteboul does not dare to say when the updated power source is ready for use, but expects that it will certainly not be earlier than the race at Spa. He also acknowledges that the communication towards Red Bull Racing with the knowledge of now could have been different. "With the information we now have, our answer seems completely inappropriate, but it is good, with a crystal ball you can invent the wheel as clairvoyant and do all kinds of things differently", he still thinks the current criticism is easy.
Source: Google Translate
