Engine boost for Fisico at Imola

Giancarlo Fisichella will be the first Renault F1 driver to get a RS26B engine placed in his R26. Only Fisico will be using the new engine because he had to retire in Bahrain and that put him 'out of cycle' relative to the development schedule of Renault. The team introduces the B spec engine 1 race earlier than first planned because of this.

Dennis Chevrier about the B-spec engine: "It is a normal evolutionary step early in the development cycle: we have looked to gain performance by increasing the peak revs, and improving areas like cylinder filling and combustion. In qualifying trim, we expect a gain of several tenths of a second and the final dyno tests before the Grand Prix will allow us to determine exactly how much additional performance is available during the race."

"The B spec engine will only be available for Giancarlo to use. His retirement in Bahrain put him ‘out of cycle’ relative to our development schedule, and we had to take a decision on whether to accelerate the introduction of the B spec, which had been planned for race 5. We decided it was important to do so, and have pushed our processes to make it happen. However, this early debut may lead us to use to conserve some of the engine’s potential performance during the race in order to not compromise reliability. Fernando will receive the B spec engine at the Nürburgring, as per our original schedule."