SHANGHAI, China – The Renault Sport Formula One Team was unable to move up the order in an action-packed 2016 Formula 1 Pirelli Chinese Grand Prix where both drivers finished the race, but finishing positions of 17th for Kevin Magnussen and 22nd for Jolyon Palmer illustrated that the team wasn’t able to harness its performance potential at the Shanghai International Circuit today.
- Kevin started from P17 on the grid on new super soft compound Pirelli tires, changing to new soft tires on laps 4 and 20, before moving on to new medium tires on lap 35.
- Jolyon started from P19 on the grid on new soft compound Pirelli tires, changing to new super soft tires on lap 15, back to new soft tires on lap 24 and finally changing to new medium tires on lap 38.
Kevin Magnussen, #20, R.S.16-02: Started P17, finished P17
“It was a pretty steady race for me really. I had a decent start and then I didn’t actually have much action – just passing people on strategy so no one was really fighting hard. This isn’t a weekend that we will be very happy about, but it’s definitely one that we can learn from. There’s a lot we still don’t really understand, so once we do we’ll be a stronger team. We knew it was going to be a tough start. We’re not panicking.”
Jolyon Palmer, #30, R.S.16-01: Started P19, finished P22
“The start was good today, as was the first lap. We made up a lot of positions. From then on though, it was a tough day. The balance of the car was all over the place. Tire degradation was bigger than usual, and the pace wasn’t as good as previous races. We need to look in the data, really, and I’m definitely happy to move on to the next race.”
Fred Vasseur, Racing Director
“It has been a tough race for the team, and we suffered a lot with tire degradation. Kevin was disadvantaged by the fact that he had such limited running in the dry, which meant limited time to refine set-up. This made it difficult to manage the tires in the race. Jolyon started on the soft tire, and we opted not to bring him in during the safety car period. Unfortunately, he had real difficulties warming these tires up afterwards, which cost him a number of places, and moving him to a four-stop strategy would have cost too much time in the pits. We will investigate why we lost so much tire temperature and performance after the safety car period. We must now look forward to the next Grand Prix and continue to learn, work hard and improve.”
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