Red Bull anticipating penalties as power unit problems mount

Red Bull’s Racing’s fragile relationship with power unit supplier Renault could be tested further in Bahrain this weekend with drivers Daniel R...

Red Bull’s Racing’s fragile relationship with power unit supplier Renault could be tested further in Bahrain this weekend with drivers Daniel Ricciardo and Daniil Kvyat set to eat further into their allocation of power unit elements.

Ricciardo had used two ICE elements prior to the Chinese Grand Prix weekend and was forced into a change of ICE after qualifying and on Sunday. It’s not know whether the precautionary change of unit on Ricciardo’s car will allow the ICE removed to be repaired. Kvyat too had used two units before the Shanghai race but will be forced to change following a blow-up on lap 16 of yesterday’s race.

With only four power units available to each driver, Ricciardo on Sunday admitted that he could soon be incurring grid penalties.

"I think we are going to get copped at least with one," said Ricciardo. "We've already gone through two of the ICEs, or whatever. Eventually we are going to have to serve penalties, but hopefully the reliability improves.

"My car today was fine, but Max and Daniil went up in smoke, so still some work to do."

Elsewhere within the allocation of power unit elements, Ricciardo had before China used two turbochargers, two MGU-H and two MGU-H units, one energy storage unit and two sets of control electronics. Kvyat has used one of every element except for the two ICE units and two sets of control electronics. Elements are interchangeable between units but it is clear that with just three races gone, Red Bull and Renault are in danger of running out of options.

In the aftermath of the race, Renault Sport F1’s Director of Operations Rémi Taffin explained: “We developed a car system problem in Qualifying on Daniel’s car so we changed the ICE as a precaution. Then we had two unforeseen failures in the race. At the present time we believe Daniil [Kvyat] and Max [Verstappen] experienced the same problem with the ICE.

“We ran a similar specification in the dyno and on track for several hundred miles without any issues, so we need to understand why,” he added. “We have dyno tests planned for next week to come back to form in Bahrain.”

And it seems that with the next race, in Bahrain, only a few days away, there maybe more trouble in store for Red Bull Racing and Toro Rosso.

“We have already spoken with Red Bull and Toro Rosso and there’s not much more to say apart from we have to investigate the reasons for the failures and put in place countermeasures for 100 per cent reliability as quickly as possible,” said Renault Sport’s Managing Director Cyril Abiteboul.

“With just five days to go, we know that Sakhir will be another test for us. But we will react to counter the issues, just as we did with the driveability situation encountered in Melbourne; now at its best level of the V6 era just two races later. The tougher it gets, the higher our motivation.”