Horner: The V6 is deceptively big

The Paris Airshow, the world’s oldest and most venerable celebration of all things aerospace is accustomed to seeing astounding new technology unveiled.

In recent years, that technology has frequently focussed on economy rather than outright performance – and in that spirit, today’s unveiling of Renault’s 2014 powerplant at the Le Bourget airfield made perfect sense.

With an apology to the superb new Airbus A350 XWB (that we’ll no doubt be sampling on flyaways in the years to come) today the stage belonged to Energy F1-2014 – the Renault power unit that will propel Red Bull Racing’s RB10 and usher in a new era for F1. With a KERS ten times as potent as the current model, a second electrical machine to harvest energy from the exhaust and a turbocharger to boost the 1.6l direct injection V6, the new units are the biggest change to racing since man first decided to use pedals instead of reins.

Christian Horner was present for the unveiling before rushing back to Milton Keynes for a Q&A session at the factory open day. “It’s deceptively big,” was his first impression. “There’s an awful lot more to the engines next year with the electrical units, the turbo and so on.”

With less than seven months to go before the engines will be fired up in the cars for winter testing, Renault Sport F1 deputy managing direct (technical) Rob White is happy to describe the manufacturer’s schedule as “aggressively late,” with his team at Viry-Châtillon – not coincidentally also located just outside Paris – eager to grab every last scrap of information from their development testing before committing to a final design.

“The target has always been to have a race-intent engine on the dyno mid-year,” says White. “The second half of this year will be intense, given the deadline of putting the race-intent engine in a car and running it on track early in 2014. Our timing is very aggressive – aggressively late – in order to ensure we take full advantage of this learning period.”

Oddly – though perhaps understandable given the level of interest – Renault took the opportunity today to also demonstrate what the engine will sound like with a simulated lap of the Marina Bay circuit in Singapore. As the engine manufacturers have insisted all along, it sounded distinctively like an F1 engine and not, as the naysayers had suggested, like a lawnmower.

“Thankfully it sounds really good,” said Christian. “The real challenge is going to be all about fuel economy. We have 100kg to start a grand prix with next year. That’s going to be a different challenge to what we currently have, trying to navigate yourself as quickly as possible to the chequered flag – especially at tracks like Singapore that are heavy on fuel consumption. That’s going to be difficult but ultimately I don’t think it will change racing too much.”