Brown: Renault say they have found a lot of kilowatts

Last year the team finished sixth in the constructors' championship largely due to Fernando Alonso's tenacious performances but the reality is that their car was probably the worst on the grid, particularly in the latter half.

Renault power, seen as their salvation, did not provide the Valhalla of performance they predicted and their design team's shortcomings were brutally exposed.

In an interview BBC, Brawn gave an update on the partnership with Renault, "They are telling us that they are very pleased with their winter progress. That they have found a lot of kilowatts, and think that they will be in the ballpark.

"I don't think it's appropriate for me to quote the numbers they have given us but they feel they are going to be very competitive next year."

The reality for McLaren is that they are still without a technical director until James Key joins from gardening leave or whatever state of employ he is in right now. What the current technical team produces in the interim period will be interesting to see.

Miracles seldom happen in Formula 1 these days, but next year the Woking outfit need one as they usher in yet another a new era with one of the youngest and most inexperienced driver partnerships in their history, with 19-year-old rookie Lando Norris promoted to the top flight and Carlos Sainz stepping in to fill the big shoes of Alonso.

Sainz was surplus to requirements at Red Bull prompting questions: Is Sainz a driver with team leader qualities? In fact, how good is the 24-year-old really? Next year we will know.

Clearly, Brown believes in Alonso's heir apparent, "[Carlos] is under no illusions that next year is going to be a tough year."

"He is very engaged with the engineering team. He wants to know. He spends time on the phone, with me, with the engineers. He's had a lot of off-season conversations with Fernando so he's very engaged and I think he's very excited and he's fully up for joining us on our road to recovery."

Brown repeated that the team may tap into Alonso's expertise during the course of the season, "He is for sure going to watch our progress with interest because he is still part of the family."

"We have spoken about testing and it is something were are going to talk about further over the winter. We need to look at our entire programme."

"Certainly having his experience in the car would be a great thing but we need to make sure our two new drivers get sufficient time because they are going to be our race drivers next year, so it is an ongoing conversation," added the McLaren Racing CEO.

With Red Bull bolting on Honda engines next year, it means Renault will only supply engines to their own works outfit and McLaren their sole customer team.

This is a double-edged sword for the two teams. On one hand, obviously, the workload and pressure will be less but they will also have a third less of the PU data available to Mercedes and Ferrari, a fact that could be significant during the season's development race, in an era where the more bytes the better.

Furthermore, the real benchmark - Red Bull - is now out the fold. At last looking the RB14 was comfortably around 1.5 seconds up on the similarly powered Renault RS18, which in turn was around half a second up on the McLaren MCL33.

Next year, should the orange cars match or beat the yellow and black ones it will be mission accomplished for Brown and his team. Anything less than that would mean another season of failure for McLaren.

https://www.grandprix247.com/2018/01/23/brown-renault-have-got-the-power/