14/06/2016
NEWS STORY
Despite heavy crashes in Monaco and Montreal, Renault is confident it will not run out of chassis.
With Jolyon Palmer writing off a chassis in Monaco, meaning a new chassis for Canada, Renault took another hit when Kevin Magnussen his the unforgiving walls of the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in FP3, just days ahead of this weekend's Grand Prix of Europe.
However, Racing Director Fred Vasseur is confident the situation is in hand.
"It means the crew at the track and the team back at Enstone are kept very busy!" he said. "It's certainly a challenging schedule with three consecutive street races and we've shown how unsympathetic walls can be.
"Kevin's Canadian chassis did not get too badly damaged so we'll see it as the spare in Baku," he continued. "Jolyon's Monaco chassis was rather more damaged so we won't see that one again.
"This is the nature of motor racing and our composites department is being kept busy. Fortunately neither driver suffered any ill from either of their impacts which illustrates the strength of the modern Formula 1 car."
"Kevin's chassis came back to the UK on Monday for repair," added Technical director, Nick Chester. "We are reviewing the damage but I am sure we will see it again for race action later in the season."
Asked how the team assesses the extent of damage, he said: "A visual assessment is the first stop, but beyond that we use a process called ultrasonic testing (NDT), which shows precisely which parts might have de-bonded, to enable us to determine how extensive the damage is and if it can be repaired or consigned to recycling."