Christian Horner about Renault: “Nothing surprises me these days”

Published on 14 June 2017 by Niels Hendrix

Team principal of Red Bull Racing, Christian Horner, was asked about their power unit supplier Renault, by Formula.com.

Christian, we understand there will not be a major Renault engine upgrade for Baku - nor, it seems, for the rest of the season. Instead it will be incremental improvements on a race-by-race basis…
Christian Horner: “Well, this is Renault's decision. We take whatever we can, when we can - for sure we'd rather sooner than later! We knew that Montreal would be tricky and so will be the next two races, Azerbaijan and Austria. We will probably introduce our next engine [from the season's allotted allocation] in Austria - and hopefully that will be a bit of a boost as our fuel supplier ExxonMobil did a great job finding performance. In this area there is quite a bit of potential.”

So you will try to make up for the lack of engine upgrade with other smart solutions?
“You always try in all areas. I don't believe that Renault has given up on this year - that's what they have told us. So we are pushing. For us it doesn't change anything. We are always pushing hard and it is good to see that the last three races showed good progress.”

Were you surprised that Renault did not make it clearer that there would be no major upgrade before 2018?
“Nothing surprises me these days. You deal with the hand that you've got and we will keep on pushing the best we can. As I just said, we are very confident our new partner ExxonMobil will help in performance from that side. And as I said before, the last three races have been promising, so let's see what Baku holds for us.”