Race - Austrian GP report: Renault F1

Team quotes

By Franck Drui

22 June 2014 - 21:00
Race - Austrian GP report: Renault F1

The Austrian Grand Prix was a disappointing affair for Renault-powered teams. Daniel Ricciardo was the highest placed driver, finishing in eighth for Infiniti Red Bull Racing.

Key race points:

 Daniel Ricciardo started fifth for Infiniti Red Bull Racing but lost several positions at the start and got caught in traffic, unable to make much headway up the field.
 Sebastian Vettel retired on lap 34 for Infiniti Red Bull Racing. When engaging the overtake button in the opening laps, an unexplained mapping issue caused the car to lose drive. Vettel dropped to the rear of the field, losing one lap in the process and later retired.
 Pastor Maldonado claims P12, two positions up on his starting slot. Romain Grosjean finishes in fourteenth after starting from the pitlane following a gearbox change this morning.
 A double retirement for Scuderia Toro Rosso. Jean-Eric Vergne stopped on lap 59 with brake problems while Daniil Kvyat retired in the sister car on lap 24 when issues on the right rear corner of the car caused him to make contact with the barriers.
 Caterham F1 Team achieve double finish with Kamui Kobayashi P16 and Marcus Ericsson P18, the latter crossing the line ahead of Sauber’s Esteban Gutierrez.

Rémi Taffin, Head of Track Operations:

Safe to say it’s been a very tough weekend for us. We came here believing the circuit would not suit the characteristics of the Renault Energy F1 Power. The Power Unit is not strong on the straights but there are many other good qualities to it, which we have not been able to show today.

Unfortunately we also experienced some issues, which have put us in a negative light. With Sebastian’s car the team experienced an issue linked to switching maps at the start. We will look at why this happened as it cost the team a lot of valuable points today. It could be an issue with our software but it could also be linked to common software – in either case it clearly needs a lot of investigation.

We’ll go through everything from Red Bull and the other teams with a fine tooth comb and come back stronger in Silverstone.

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