Renault Sport apologizes to Red Bull and Lotus

Renault Sport has apologized to Sebastian Vettel and Romain Grosjean for the failures they suffered at the European GP and promised to carry out a thorough investigation into the alternator problems they suffered at Valencia.

Vettel was forced to retire on lap 34, while Grosjean parked his Lotus seven laps later: both teams had confirmed after the race that they suspected alternator problems and Remi Taffin, Renault Sport's head of track operations, explains that it actually involved different motivations. “We need to raise our hands and apologize to both Red Bull and Lotus for the problems with Sebastian and Romain's cars.”, Taffin said. “Both suffered alternator failures, although it appears for different reasons. Sebastian overheated the engine which then shut down, while Romain had a loss of power in the electrical system which led to the engine shutting down.".

“We, of course, are committed to fully investigating the reasons for this when the parts are brought to our premises in Viry to try to ensure that Red Bull and Lotus, plus our other other partners, do not suffer the same problem in future. Similarly, there will also be work to understand the reasons for the problems Heikki Kovalainen's Caterham had with KERS: there is a lot of work to do between now and Silverstone, but we have a strong team and the right resources to resolve the issues trouble", concluded the Renault manager.

Lorena Bianchi