MOTORSPORT: Renault power pledge for Ricciardo

Renault says it will come to Australia in six weeks with a "very different" – and much better – power unit for Daniel Ricciardo to challenge the might of Mercedes cars in Melbourne's Formula One season-opening Grand Prix.

"We believe we have made a very big step in performance," Renault Sport F1 managing director Cyril Abiteboul has said ahead of the imminent reveal of the RB11 Red Bull-Renault car and the start of pre-season testing in Europe.

"We are confident that we have gone a long way to making up the deficit of last season."

The French manufacturer will have made most of the permissible changes to its F1 power unit this year before the cars are flown to Australia after 12 days of testing in Spain.

Renault's power unit was estimated to have been as much as 60 horsepower down on Mercedes in the first season of the new hybrid era last year.

Although Ricciardo won three GPs, Renault came under massive pressure from Red Bull Racing, with which it won the previous four world championships in the days of V8 engines in F1, to close the gap on Mercedes.

In Melbourne last year Ricciardo crossed the finish line in second place, 24.5 seconds behind the Mercedes of victor Nico Rosberg, but hours later was disqualified because his car had exceeded its fuel-flow limit.  

Motorsport's world governing body, the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA), has allocated 66 'tokens' to the components of the power units and manufacturers can use 32 of those for upgrades this season – with fewer changes allowed each year up to the end of the decade.

While Ricciardo is looking forward to improved Renault power in what will be his first season as Red Bull Racing's main man, following Sebastian Vettel's move to Ferrari, he is particularly curious about how Honda will perform in its return to F1 with McLaren.

"They are the one team that is probably more unknown ... they have got the potential to do very well," Ricciardo said.

Other question marks are how much Ferrari can improve after its first winless season since 1993, and a huge change in key personnel in recent months, and how dominant Mercedes can remain after winning 16 of last year's 19 GPs.

"If we can halve the gap [to Mercedes], and at least start the season like that [in Melbourne on March 13-15], then it is a good start," Ricciardo said.

"Then we can apply a bit of pressure as the season goes on."

Renault's Abiteboul said his company "knew what we had to do over the [northern] winter and we know what we have achieved".

"We believe we have made a very big step in performance and will be more reliable," Abiteboul said.

"We do not know where the others will be. We may not have erased all the gaps [to Mercedes], but we are confident that we have gone a long way to making up the deficit of last season.

"Our objective is to close the gap as much as possible and give Red Bull Racing and [Red Bull junior team] Scuderia Toro Rosso a more competitive car on most circuits, independently of their characteristics and sensitivities."

Renault's head of trackside operations Remi Taffin said "lots of changes have been made across all areas from last year".

"We won't go into specifics about each and every part we have changed, but we will arrive in Melbourne with a very different engine to last year," Taffin said.

"This year we can cash in up to 32 tokens over the season and we plan to use a great deal for Australia, with some saved for use during the year to give flexibility."

Renault's chief F1 technical officer Rob White said using tokens for changes before the season had been a priority so that the power unit supplier and Red Bull could make as much headway as possible early in the championship.

"We have upgraded every system and subsystem, with items that will give the most performance prioritised," White said.

"The principal changes involve the internal combustion engine, turbocharger and battery.

"The engine will have a new combustion chamber, exhaust system concept and variable trumpets, as permitted by the 2015 regulations.

"The compressor is more efficient, while the energy recovery systems are able to deal with more severe usage.

"The 2014 unit was already well placed in its centre of gravity, however we have tidied up the packaging to give greater ease of integration into the chassis.

"Additionally, many systems and functions have been rationalised and simplified to further ease the task.

"In short, there are very few carry-over pieces between the 2014 and 2015 power units."

Ricciardo, 25, and with 69 GPs under his belt, is now the most experienced F1 driver in the Red Bull "family". His teammate this year will be 20-year-old Russian Daniil Kyvat, who has had just one season at Toro Rosso.

That junior team will field two rookies in Melbourne – 17-year-old Max Verstappen, son of Dutchman Jos Verstappen who drove more than 100 GPs, and 20-year-old Carlos Sainz Junior, son of a Spanish world rally champion and Dakar ultra-marathon rally winner.

Ricciardo said he expected the Williams team, last year's big improver, to be strong again this year with its Mercedes power units, but that McLaren, just hours from launching its MP4-30 car with Honda power and having paired Fernando Alonso with Jenson Button, was "the big question mark".

"I am actually excited to see how they go. They have obviously got the potential to do very well," Ricciardo said.

"That is probably the one that everyone is going to be watching to see what sort of step they have made and what they bring to the table.

"For the rest [of the field] there will be standard steps, but it will be interesting to see what McLaren can do.

"It is a curiosity. They are the one team that is probably more unknown.

"Ferrari have the opportunity to make a good step. They underperformed last year, but there are probably no real strong signs they will gain a second [a lap], whereas McLaren could gain that second if everything gels with Honda.

"No one knows how quick the Honda can be, which is why I am saying it will be more exciting to see whether they are really quick or if they are back in the pack."

Ferrari's new technical director James Allison said the Italian team had been working intently on generating "lots of downforce, lots of horsepower and good driveability" from its SF15-T car to be unveiled online on Friday night, Australian time.

"The [hybrid] regulations are still quite young and there is still a lot of opportunity for finding performance in the power unit – and equally true on the aerodynamic side," Allison said.

"New regulations have changed the way we have to package [design] the front end of the car to some extent, the way the front wing works and the nose and turning vanes – but it's not really so big a deal.

"This year's car is certainly an awful lot better looking than last year's car: prettier round the front, tighter round the back, and that makes for a nice car."
Ferrari's new team principal Maurizio Arrivabene, who replaced Marco Mattiaci after just eight months, has set two GP wins as the minimum target for this season.