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Renault say Verstappen podium a reward for their hard work

Renault say Verstappen podium a reward for their hard work

19-09-2018 18:30
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Jake Williams-Smith

Max Verstappen's podium finish is a reward for Renault's hard work in development according to the French team. Verstappen was able to score a second-place finish in Singapore despite a wounded Renault engine that wasn't delivering power correctly.

Suffering from power delivery issues all weekend, the Red Bull driver was still able to qualify on the front row ahead of Sebastian Vettel and went on to score finish where he started after an impressive performance.

Renault boss Cyril Abiteboul believes that the result was a demonstration of the work that Renault has been doing all season, with the Dutchman running the new Spec-C engine in Singapore.

"It's quite a good reward for all the effort put into the Spec C, which we know is not perfect given the circumstances," Abiteboul told Autosport.

"But we can see it's capable of delivering a healthy increase of 15kW, which was the expectation, and that's exactly what's happening.

"I think Daniel has found some way to work around some of the limitations of the mapping. Maybe Max after the weekend has also found his way.

"But let's be honest, it's not up to the drivers to find a way to work around the engine, it's up to us.

"However, it was clear that the Spec C was coming with a certain number of risks, and as always we would expect that this agreement is respected by everyone."

Abiteboul did admit that work was still needed to address the issues that Red Bull was experiencing around the Marina Bay Circuit before they could really be happy.

"Absolutely, mapping will be addressed. But mapping is also a factor of every single track we go to, and we'll try to see how we can explore that, and try to do a better job with Red Bull."