"We worked extremely hard until the very end, but due to a number of issues, there were instances when it was a bit too late. However, our goal was to push development to its absolute limit.
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On the plus side, the A522’s updated Renault E-Tech RE22 engine secured not only a respectable increase in horsepower but also a compact design that aided in the packaging of the vehicle and enhanced its aerodynamics. The pursuit of aggressive profits, however, was not without drawbacks. Too frequently, engine issues cost Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon the chance to score points. It was expected that towards the end of the year, Alonso would be particularly dissatisfied with the difficulties he had encountered and the cost he had incurred personally. After the devastating news of his elimination from the Mexican Grand Prix, he commented, “I think it was around minus 50 [points], so now we have another eight.” So it’s down 58 points, or down 60 over a year, which is really terrible for my automobile.
But despite the challenging times that occasionally gave the impression that Renault had made a serious mistake, the reality of its predicament was one of calculated risks. With the engine freeze in effect until the end of 2025, Renault understood there was no room to hold back on performance with what it was racing with last year, much like Ferrari had done. Any horsepower the 2022-spec engine missed out on was essentially lost forever because technical advancements only made reliability issues possible once the campaign got going. Therefore, the strategy was to do everything possible to improve performance right away, even if that meant that things weren’t initially as reliable as they should have been. Although there was a chance that might lead to the kind of difficulties that Alpine would later face, it was always a case of short-term discomfort for long-term gain.
The payoff would come later since the final product would be far better overall than a super-safe lower spec initial launch design once the reliability patches were in place. Bruno Famin, head of Renault’s F1 engine, is upfront about the fact that it wasn’t a conservative strategy. Reflecting on the circumstance from the previous year, he added, “We actually took quite a lot of risk. “The risk we made was trying to make the engine as light as possible and not going through the entire validation process that we would have typically gone through. “We really tried to push until the very end, but due of several problems, sometimes it was a little too late. However, we truly intended to push development to its limit.
