Renault boss Cyril Abiteboul says the team is having to think hard about aggressive it can afford to be in the season finale at Abu Dhabi.
After some embarrassing power unit failures in recent races, the team opted to turn down its engines at Interlagos. Both the works cars duly made it to the finish, but in subdued positions. Nico Hulkenberg finished tenth, with his new team mate Carlos Sainz one place further back.
Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo were fifth and sixth in the Renault-powered Red Bull cars. Pierre Gasly was 12th in the sister Toro Rosso, but team mate Brendon Hartley retired on lap 40.
"It's a shame that I had to retire," Hartley reported after the race. "I think that we could've finished the race just behind Pierre if we hadn't suffered a high oil consumption.
"We knew that there was a problem early on in the race, as I had to start transferring oil. I didn't want to ask, but I had the feeling that we were not going to get to the end. And we didn't."
For Renault, that outcome was the worst of both worlds.
"We were in a position where we had to sacrifice a bit of performance in order to increase the reliability," Abiteboul told Motorsport.com.
"It's not a nice situation to be in," he added, pointing out that it meant Renault had been able do little to improve its position after the first lap.
"It's a bit bitter because we know there is much more potential," he said.
Now the question is what Renault will decide to do in the final race of the season. Does it go all out for success at the risk of its engines blowing up, or end up lacking power to compete on track?
It's no mere academic question. Renault is currently in seventh place in the drivers championship, just four points away from catching Toro Rosso. But at the same time, Renault is only two points ahead of the Haas F1 Team.
Losing a place in the championship in the final run could cost the team millions in prize money.
"We know Haas are very close in the championship," Abiteboul acknowledged. "We need to take a balanced approach, that will be the focus."
However that didn't mean safety-first was the way to go. "We would like and could afford to be aggressive," he said. "If you're not aggressive at the last race, when are you going to be?
He added that Renault needed to make sure it didn't have to make the performance/reliability trade off in future. "If we want to race in F1, we need both," he stressed.
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