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Renault fear fuel trouble could "bite" them again without immediate fix

19:06, 16 May 2018

byMatt

Cyril Abiteboul clarifies that Renault has a lingering fuel issue with could come back to “bite” the team should they not fix soon. The latest trouble with this issue came in Sunday’s race.

Carlos Sainz had to back off in high G corners as a result of the fuel issue. Obviously, this is costing both team and driver dearly. Sainz still managed to drive the car home in 7th, but it makes you wonder how competitive Renault could be.

“We had a bit of a warning on fuel pressure towards the end of the race,” Renault’s managing director Abiteboul told Autosport.

“And we had to manage it, and Carlos did that by going a bit easy in Turn 3, which is always a very challenging corner for fuel pressure.

“It’s a problem that we’ve seen before - so that’s something that we need to fix because there is a couple of race where it’s going to bite us again.”

Renault is facing serious pressure from McLaren for the 4th spot in the constructors' championship. The McLaren had plenty of upgrades in Spain but still finished below Renault.

McLaren impressed in today’s testing session finishing 3rd, but over both days, Renault was half a second faster.