Ricciardo and Hulkenberg promised 'drastic' new 2019 Renault engine

Renault hope to close the gap to Ferrari and Mercedes in 2019 with a completely new power unit, team boss Cyril Abiteboul has revealed. It remains to be seen whether the French marque will be able to add sufficient pace next year, when they will lose Red Bull as a customer.

Renault have been left for dust in the V6 Hybrid era, especially by Mercedes, but the works team are resurgent and hope to take fourth in the constructors' standings this season.

Daniel Ricciardo will arrive from Red bull in 2019 and Abiteboul says the Australian and Nico Hulkenberg will be treated to an entirely redesigned power unit.

"It is a new engine," Abiteboul told Motorsport. "One of the reasons for it, and why the Spec-C is not delivering more in terms of performance, is because we are not held back by the structural limitations of the [current] engine.

"Given the ambition in terms of power improvement for next year, pretty much all of the engine will be new.

"Not only on ERS side, because there is little power and little performance to extract there, but the rest of the ICE will be new.

"That is why we need to be a little bit careful and that is why we need to be extremely drastic and have lots of discipline on planning and milestones to make sure that we are not putting ourselves in a difficult position at the start of the season."

Abiteboul claims that Renault have developed parts that could have improved their performance in 2018, but says F1's rules have prevented them from adding the parts to their car.

He said: "That is what is silly with the current regulations, even if you have a better part you cannot afford to introduce it because of all the penalties and all the sporting consequences. That is crazy.

"You are spending money to improve your parts, you approve it on dyno, it is available it is built, it is there [at the track], and you cannot put it on the car.

"That is crazy. There is really something wrong here. But anyway, that is why – those two issues are addressed."

MORE: Keeping Raikkonen over Leclerc 'too risky' for Ferrari
MORE: Rosberg backs Hamilton to surpass Schumacher