Red Bull chief technical officer Adrian Newey is upbeat about the progress Renault are making with their power unit and believes that they could soon be a true match for Mercedes if they continue the upwardly mobile progress of late.
The French manufacturer was caught on the wrong foot when the new turbo era dawned in 2014, they made little if any progress in 2015, a fact which Red Bull made very public. A divorce between the long time partners seemed inevitable.
But over the winter peace ensued and a TAG-Heuer branded Renault was bolted onto the back of the Red Bull F1 challengers for 2016.
Fast forward several races and Red Bull have already won a race, with Max Verstappen winning in Spain. Now they are best of the rest, taking the fight to Mercedes on occasions and appearing to have closed the gap to the dominant team, while leap frogging Ferrari in the F1 pecking order.
Newey told ESPN, "I think it's fairly well recorded that at the start of last season there was a frustrating time when Renault if anything, frankly, were going backwards rather than forwards."
"But they seem to have really gone away, understood their problems and made really good progress over the last winter and again with the upgrade that we had for Monaco. If they can keep that ramp going then we can really start to close in, power unit wise, on Mercedes."
The ace designer gives credit to Renault's hand in their victory in Barcelona, "It's obviously good to have won a race again this year."
"Monaco was frustrating because we mucked that up ourselves, but to be back running at least somewhere near the front is a reward to not only all the hard work that's gone on at Red Bull, but also all the hard work Renault has put in over the last 12 months," added Newey.
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