Renault managing director, Cyril Abiteboul has higher hopes for Renault powered cars in 2015 and says his goal is “to claim at least 5 wins this season.”
For the 2015 season Renault are only supplying Red Bull and sister team, Toro Rosso, since Lotus have switched to Mercedes power and Caterham are still fighting for a place on the grid.
“We estimate that our gap to Mercedes at the end of the 2014 season was about 60 horsepower,” Abiteboul revealed in an interview with Canal+, and hopes the gap would halve by the opening race of the season.
Red Bull took 3 wins in 2014 but were a class behind the leaders, Mercedes.
“Unlike Mercedes, we will start the 2015 season with the 2015 version of our engine. To date we have used about two thirds of the 32 allowed tokens to change our engine this year.”
When asked by Canal+ about the prospect of 1000+ horsepower engines in the sport, Abiteboul said Renault would not object the idea, so long as costs remain under control.
“The idea is attractive, but it seems that it is already too late for 2016. 2017, however, is ideal timing.”
