Race - British GP report: Renault F1

Infiniti Red Bull Racing’s Daniil Kvyat finished a fighting sixth in today’s action-packed British Grand Prix. The Russian was on the tail of fifth-placed Valtteri Bottas at the end of the race, but ran out of laps to make a move.

Key race points:

— Daniil Kvyat started from seventh on the grid and raced in the tightly packed top ten. When the rain came he stayed out of the pits relatively late, driving outstandingly in the changing conditions. In the final laps he was closing on Bottas at a rate of two seconds a lap and was right on his rear wing at the chequered flag.
— Daniel Ricciardo retired his Infiniti Red Bull Racing on lap 22 with an electrical problem.
— Scuderia Toro Rosso’s Max Verstappen went off track on lap 3 and could not rejoin. Team-mate Carlos Sainz stopped on lap 31 with an electrical problem that is under investigation.

Rémi Taffin, Director of Operations:

It was a fascinating race for the fans, but frustrating for us. Daniil [Kvyat] drove well to finish under a second from fifth. The car and engine worked well together, and he was able to adapt to the changing – and very challenging – conditions extremely well. Daniel stopped with an electrical issue that affected the ERS and we need to investigate exactly what happened. We tried several resets in the race but when neither worked fully we had to retire the car.

At Toro Rosso, it’s a shame Carlos and Max were not able to convert the performance potential they have demonstrated all weekend. With Carlos we experienced an electrical problem that we need to look into and resolve before the next race. But the performance is there, which is a plus for everyone going forward.

Cyril Abiteboul, Managing Director:

Given our reliability has been perfect for the last four races it is disappointing to see two race-stoppers in the same weekend. Both Daniel [Ricciardo] and Carlos [Sainz] experienced electrical issues and we need to analyse what happened in both cases.

We do have a number of positives from this weekend, however. Both Toro Rosso and Red Bull have been solid top ten runners in all sessions and the race pace was strong. While we have some work to do before Hungary, the overall performance level is improved on the previous races. We need to keep this in mind in the three week break and convert into solid race results across all four cars in Budapest.

We should also say that F1 has put on a brilliant show today and it gives us even more motivation to close the gap and be part of those battles.