Renault Sport insists that it has got to the bottom of the problems suffered in Australia.
Although three of its cars made the top 10, the other five Renault powered cars failed to see the flag, albeit for a variety of reasons.
“After a difficult race in Australia we are really looking forward to Malaysia,” said head of track operations Remi Taffin. “We had several issues across the cars in Melbourne but we have recreated the problems in the dyno at Viry. Most are fixed and the remaining will be under control by Friday in Sepang. While we anticipate further issues may occur we are much more able to react quickly to minimize their impact.”
Intriguingly Taffin pointed out that Sepang will be one of the toughest races of the year for the V6 part of the new power unit.
“Sepang is one of the circuits whose technical requirements will change under the new regulations. In the V8 era the circuit sat towards the middle of the table for the challenge it posed for engines, but now it will be one of the toughest races of the year.
“Of the six main components of the PU, the internal combustion engine will be under the most pressure in Malaysia. The humidity in Sepang made it a little bit easier on normally aspirated engines, since power comes down as the water content in the air increases. This means we were generally able to offset the impact of the two long straights.
“This year we won’t have this luxury. With a turbo engine the air intake is controlled at all times regardless of ambient conditions so those long straights will really start to hurt. As a result Sepang will become a lot less forgiving as twice a lap the PUs will be flat out, with the turbo revving at close to 100,000rpm for over 10secs.”
He also pinpointed the role of energy recovery in Malaysia: “The straights, which are over 1km each, will however provide plenty of opportunity for the MGU-H to be recharged. The tight corners such as the T15 hairpin, the first corner complex and the mid to low speed corners in the third sector will allow the MGU-K to recover energy under braking. With relatively high fuel consumption due to the short bursts of acceleration between turns, getting maximum energy from these opportunities will be incredibly important.”
Adam Cooper's F1 Blog 
Bring it on…..It should be fantastic.
If Merc have a pretty big power advantage, as is expected, then sector 1 and 3 in qualifying will highlight it.
I hope Renault do get on top of their issues (ditto for Ferrari), it’s important for F1 that the Alonso’s, Vettel’s, Raikkonen’s and co have cars that can compete somewhere near the front.
In the 2nd half of last year we saw what a car with 3 or 4 tenths advantage can do when the driver is on song too. I think all agree that it took some of the shine off what was a cracking first half of a season. If Merc have more than double that advantage as many in the sport still suggest (0.75>1s seems to be the figure banded about)? Well lets hope that’s not the case, because otherwise we could be on course for a 2011 season again.