F1 News

Renault relaxed over DRS issue

Renault relaxed over DRS issue

20-02-2019 19:13
2

It was a frantic start for Renault in pre-season testing, earlier in the week after Ricciardo’s rear wing flew off, but the team believe they have now solved that problem.

Renault ran without DRS during Wednesday’s session which was piloted by Nico Hulkenberg whilst the issue was resolved.

Following analysis, it was revealed a fault with the DRS mechanism caused the problem and the team confirmed all is well heading into the final day of pre-season testing in Barcelona.

"It lost the link bar, and that allowed the flap to rotate,” said Renault technical director, Nick Chester.

“We understood what the problem was and then we fixed it and we have been running DRS today.

“We did some checks on it after lunch and then ran it on the fast laps at the start of each run in the afternoon.”

The incident caused the team’s new driver, Daniel Ricciardo to spin out but Chester remained fairly relaxed about the whole situation, blaming it on technical changes.

“We are reasonably positive, but it is difficult because there are different fuel loads and engine modes, plus DRS on and DRS off.

“The geometry has changed as well for the DRS because we have a different line of action now for this year.

“So it is a just a detail change that we needed to make,” added Chester.