F1 Talk: Ferrari and Renault Bring Upgrades to French GP

As the 2019 Formula 1 season continues back in mainland Europe, for this weekend’s French GP at Circuit Paul Ricard, it is two of the manufacturer teams under pressure. Ferrari and Renault are both bringing upgrades in a bid to aid their performance.

The French GP marks the eighth round of the championship and the pressure will be mounting at both outfits for differing reasons, with Ferrari’s lack of performance making a world championship almost nigh impossible, where Renault’s apparent backward direction has been a cause of concern for the French manufacturer.

But for the team’s home race, the hope is that things will be different, as a major aerodynamic upgrade package for the outfit is expected for this weekend’s action at Circuit Paul Ricard. These were parts that were largely expected for the Spanish GP, but delays in the team’s manufacturing and evaluation processes have meant that they were only ready in time for this weekend’s French GP as the parts were only formally signed off in the post-Spanish GP test last month.

So while there is frustration at the team, at the same time, there is cause for optimism as it is hoped that this aerodynamic package will help to vault them to the front of the midfield after being off the pace during the first six races. Although, the speed that they showed at the last race in Montreal, where they finished a season’s best of sixth and seventh has helped them no end, which can be attributed to their strong engine performance.

Despite having poor engine reliability at the Bahrain GP, which saw both Daniel Ricciardo and Nico Hulkenberg retire within metres of each other during the final two laps of the race with MGU-K problems, Canada saw a boost to both engine performance and reliability, with their first major aerodynamic upgrade coming for their home race this weekend.

But with five races coming in the next seven weeks, the outcome of their performance upgrades this weekend will serve as a vital landmark for Renault’s F1 form this season.

This was noted by the Renault Team Principal Cyril Abiteboul.

“France is clearly an important milestone. Not only is it our home Grand Prix at Le Castellet, but also the opportunity to demonstrate a further improvement in our competitiveness.

“While Canada, a power sensitive circuit, underlined the gains made in engine performance, France will see the introduction of several development items on the chassis. One thing is clear: we cannot dwell on Montreal; [we have] to aim for a repeat of that result and keep striving to reduce the gap to the front.” – Cyril Abiteboul.

Ferrari meanwhile are not bringing such ambitious upgrades with what Ferrari Team Principal Mattia Binotto has described the upgrades to the SF90 as ‘small evolutions’ in order to identify the weaknesses of their package in their battle to bridge the gap to Mercedes in the coming races.

The Scuderia have been lacking both front and rear-end downforce in the first seven races, and while they have shown competitiveness on the downforce-light circuits in Bahrain and Canada, the prancing horses have failed to be a match for the silver arrows around the more aero-dependent racetracks. With Circuit Paul Ricard being another of such tracks, the expectation is not for Ferrari to be a match for Mercedes, but for the updates to provide a landmark for where future progress should be targeted.

So heading to France, Binotto is reported to have told Autosport.com that:

“What we will be bringing won’t be the solution to our problems, but the technical feedback we get from these evolutions will be important for the next steps we take.

“Paul Ricard has been a tricky circuit for us last year and we know that this kind of track isn’t particularly favourable for our package, but nothing is impossible so we will be ready to do our best.” – Mattia Binotto

Meanwhile, McLaren and Racing Point have also revealed the reasons behind their unexpected failures in Montreal.

For McLaren, it has been revealed that the reason behind Lando Norris’s suspension failure during the Canadian GP was because the brakes were overheating which forced the British driver to cut across the turns 3/4 chicane earlier in the lap. This then resulted in a localised fire which caused the component failure on his suspension which meant that he was forced to retire from the race.

“We had high temperatures in the brakes that caused a component failure, which basically created a localised fire.

“Because it was in an area where there isn’t any air flow, it didn’t get extinguished, and basically we exceeded the temperatures that carbon can withstand, and effectively that led to the suspension giving way.

“We’re clear about what happened, so it’s not an ongoing issue – it was a singular event.” – McLaren Team spokesman to Motorsport.com. 

For Racing Point, it has been revealed that Lance Stroll’s spectacular power unit blow-up during Free Practice Three of the Canadian GP weekend was because of a sparkplug failure. It came on the weekend that Mercedes brought updated power units to Mercedes as well as their works teams, Racing Point and Williams. It has come at somewhat of a surprise to Brixworth, as the only other time that failure has occurred on a Mercedes v6 power-unit was to Lewis Hamilton’s car at the 2014 Australian GP.

“The origin was a spark plug failure that caused a cascade of other problems, resulting in the engine failure. We will have countermeasures in place for this weekend.” – Mercedes spokesman told Motorsport.com.

So despite the concern, they have every confidence that their power units will perform reliably around Circuit Paul Ricard.