Renault is looking at extending its involvement with engine specialists Ilmor over multiple years as it looks to catch up with rival manufacturers Mercedes and Ferrari.
Ilmor started working with Renault last year to help develop its underperforming power unit and it has remained in the fold now that the French manufacturer has set up its own works team. Despite spending just seven of its 32 development tokens over the winter, Renault has made significant progress with its engine and technical director Bob Bell said the collaboration with Ilmor has contributed both new ideas and more test facilities.
"There is an option for a multi-year programme with Ilmor and they represent an important development strand to us," he told ESPN. "They are a very experienced organisation and they bring a new and fresh view and a different way of looking at the problem. I think that can be very enlightening and stimulating for the existing group [of engineers from Renault].
"In real practical terms, it's 20 percent extra capacity or something like that. It brings very real benefits and we have to make sure we align the work done at Ilmor with the work done in Paris so that it's completely complimentary and guided in one direction, which I'm sure is eminently doable. They are a great group of guys at Ilmor and they are working well with the guys at Paris, so it's a great resource to have on tap."
Asked when the option for future involvement with Ilmor needs to be taken up, Bell added: "As with most contracts in life, there are always points at which you can get out. I think for both parties it's important that the relationship is working for them, and it needs to work for Ilmor as much as it needs to work for Renault. We will judge it on a year-by-year basis, but I think all of the intention is to see it run for multiple years."
Bell said the key to turning the Renault engine programme around has been pinpointing what went wrong over the last two years.
"When you look at what happened with the 2014 engine and the 2015 engine there are two issues that you have to deal with. One is that the engines from a pure technological standpoint were not as good as the best and there were elements missing from within the technology portfolio. So you have to rectify that, identify where they were weak and fix those physical issues with the power unit.
"But perhaps even more importantly that that we have to look at the organisation and say 'why did that happen?' We need to understand what failings in the organisation and what weaknesses in the organisation led to a development programme that delivered those power units?
"We need to try to understand the structural changes that need to be made in the organisation in order that we don't repeat those situations. In a sense we are developing the engine and we are developing the organisation in parallel. We need to do both."