The Renault Sport F1 engine [1] program is certainly the class of the field right now, supplying engines to 10 championship teams in the past 20 years. Current customers include Red Bull, Williams, Caterham and Lotus.
Renault is also one of the most aggressive engine suppliers in promoting videos of its products and behind-the-scenes action. EngineLabs [2] assembled a selection showing just how far the team has come in engine development and testing.
[3]The videos give an inside peek into the engineering behind Formula 1 engines.
The above lead video is an excellent overview of the current Renault operation at Viry-Chatillon in France. There are scenes from the design rooms to the test labs where precision measurements are made. Then there’s the dyno room. The engine is completely wired with sensors to monitor every possible engine function, and the test program is fully computerized to simulate the various tracks. These V8 engines were listed at 750 horsepower but that has to be rather conservative. Note a few stretch runs up to 18,000 rpm.
In the videos below, Renault shares its great V10 heritage. Check out the test stand for the RS1 engine. It’s a test driver hand shifting the tranny, complete with heel-toe braking. Over the course of the V10 development, Renault says it picked up 4,000 rpm while reducing the weight by nearly 40 pounds.
There’s plenty of glowing headers and injector spray in these videos. Enjoy! And be sure to turn up the volume!!