Renault chief accuses Red Bull of lies

But Renault’s Abiteboul has hit back at this remark, stating Red Bull deserves as much of the blame as Renault.

“Yes, it’s difficult to have a partner who lies,” Abiteboul told Auto Hebdo when asked if Newey’s comments were hard to hear. “Adrian is a charming man and an engineer without parallel, but he’s spent his life criticising engine partners. He’s too old to change his ways.”

In a Renault press release issued on Tuesday, Abiteboul elaborated on how both sides of the partnership were at fault.

“We need to work together to understand our issues, both within the power unit and the chassis. Our figures have shown that the lap time deficit between Red Bull and Mercedes in Melbourne was equally split between driveability issues, engine performance and chassis performance. It’s therefore the overall package that needs some help and we have been working with the team to move forward.

“We’ve been particularly aggressive in development and we should see the results a lot more clearly in Malaysia, particularly since we have had the opportunity to refine the PU using the data from Australia. Work is still ongoing but even now we are in a completely different place to where we finished Melbourne.”