Q & A with Renault's Rob White

Rob White - Renault's Deputy Managing Director (Engine): Yes, we have found the exact cause. For obvious reasons of technical confidentiality, we do not wish to go into details, but it was a sudden failure in the bottom end of the engine. Our analysis of that engine, and our efforts to reproduce the failure, have allowed us to fully understand the problem.

Q. Was it a result of having to push harder than normal in the race because of Fernando's grid position?

RW: No. Had Fernando been lying first or last, the engine would have failed at about the same point of the race. Fernando's use of the engine was completely within a normal duty cycle throughout the weekend.

Q. Is the problem easily addressed?

RW: We operate a philosophy of "zero defect" at Renault, so any failure requires rigorous and thorough analysis. Of course, once isolated, any problem can be addressed, though few are easy. The challenge is to fix the problem in the time available between races and to do so while maintaining and increasing the performance of the engine.

For China, we will be preparing and transporting two slightly different engine specifications, one of which is a small gain over Monza, and the other a larger gain. Between now and Thursday, the dynos in Viry will be working day and night on track simulations. The data gathered will be analysed, to orientate our choice of engine the race.

Q. Are the engine failures suffered in testing over the past two weeks related to this?

RW: Yes, they are further examples of the same problem that caused the Monza failure. Analysis of these confirmed our diagnosis and helped us further understand the cause of the problem.

Q. Are the failures anything to worry about, or were they just part of finding out how far the engines can be pushed?

RW: No failure is either satisfactory or acceptable when you apply a zero-defect philosophy. But they are part of any development programme, and the challenge comes in responding effectively to them.

There has been a Herculean effort from everybody at Viry in the past two weeks, and all our suppliers and technical partners, to respond to the problem - and it has really shown the true worth of this team. We are determined not to let the championship slip from our grasp.

Q. Will you still use the latest specification engine in the Chinese Grand Prix?

RW: Yes, we will. Both engines used in China will be D spec units, and represent a performance gain over the Monza engines.

Q. What modifications have you put in place?

RW: Again, we would prefer not to say for reasons of technical confidentiality.

Q. How confident are you that there will not be any more problems?

RW: It is always presumptuous to say that we are 100% confident there will be no problems - nothing in this business is ever 100% certain. The pressure is on for both us and Ferrari, as any reliability problems at this stage of the season would be catastrophic.

We know that we have been rigorous in our analysis, our testing and our risk management in finding the appropriate solution to the failure in Monza. We will not race a solution that we do not have full confidence in.