Renault F1 is the
Renault
company's
Formula One racing team.
Renault
has a long though intermittent history of involvement in motor
racing, including Ferenc Szisz winning
the first French Grand
Prix
, usually regarded as marking the birth of Grand Prix motor racing.
Renault has competed in Formula One (originally via subsidiary
Renault Sport), both as an engine
supplier and as a constructor from the late 1970s to the present
day, with several breaks. Renault introduced the
turbo engine to Formula One when they debuted their
first car, the
Renault RS01 at
Silverstone in . Although the
Renault team won races and competed for world titles, it was as a
supplier of normally aspirated engines to the
Benetton and
Williams teams in the 1990s that Renault first
tasted world championship success. Renault returned to the category
as a constructor in by taking over the Benetton team, which was
renamed Renault in . Their first championship as a constructor was
achieved in ; the same year that they won their first drivers'
championship with former test driver
Fernando Alonso repeating that feat in
.
Renault F1
is coordinated from the team's UK
base at
Enstone
, Oxfordshire where the
chassis are designed and built. Engines are manufactured at
Renault's facility at
Viry-Châtillon outside Paris. As well as
their championship wins in 2005 and 2006, Renault also contributed
to 5 driver's world championships ( , , , , ) and 6 constructor's
world championships (1992, 1993, , 1995, 1996, 1997) as engine
supplier for Benetton and Williams.
Currently, Renault F1 is responsible for Renault's involvement in
Formula One; Renault's other motorsport activities are conducted
through
Renault Sport.
On 4 November 2009 Renault held an emergency board meeting to
decide the future of the Renault F1 team.
1970s and 1980s
1977
Renault first involvement in Formula One was made by the
Renault Sport subsidiary.Renault entered the
last five races of with
Jean-Pierre Jabouille in its only car.
The
Renault RS01 was well known for its
Renault-
Gordini V6 1.5
L turbocharged engine, the first regularly used
turbo engine in Formula One history. Jabouille's car and engine
proved highly unreliable and became something of a joke during its
first races, earning the nickname of "Yellow Teapot" and failing to
finish any of its races despite being extremely powerful.
1978
The following year was hardly better, characterized by four
consecutive retirements caused by blown engines, but near the end
of the year the team showed signs of success.
Twice, the RS01
qualified 3rd on the grid and while finishing was still something
of an issue, it managed to finish its first race on the lead lap at
Watkins
Glen
near the end of , giving the team a fourth place
finish and its first Formula One points.
1979
Expanding to two drivers with
René
Arnoux joining Jabouille, the team continued to struggle
although Jabouille earned a
pole
position in
South
Africa.
By mid-season, both drivers had a new
ground-effect car, the RS10,
and at Dijon for the French Grand
Prix the team legitimized itself with a brilliant
performance in a classic race. The two Renaults were on the
front row in qualifying, and pole-sitter Jabouille won the race,
the first driver in a turbo-charged car to do so, while Arnoux and
Gilles Villeneuve were involved in
an extremely competitive duel for second, Arnoux narrowly getting
beaten to the line. While Jabouille ran into hard times after that
race, Arnoux finished a career-high second at
Silverstone in the following race
and then repeated that at the Glen, proving it wasn't a
fluke.
1980 - 83
Arnoux furthered this in with consecutive wins in
Brazil and
South Africa. Jabouille
continued to have problems with retirements, but in his only points
finish he emerged victorious in
Austria. At the end of the year
Jabouille crashed heavily at the
Canadian GP and suffered serious
leg injuries, which effectively ended his career as a Grand Prix
driver.
Alain Prost was signed up for .
In his three years with the team, Prost showed the form that would
make him a Formula One legend and the Renaults were among the best
in Formula One, twice finishing third in the constructors
championships and second once. Prost won nine races with the team
while Arnoux added two more in . Arnoux left for rival
Ferrari after 1982 and was replaced by
American
Eddie Cheever. In , Renault
and Prost came very close to winning the drivers' title but were
edged out by
Nelson Piquet (
Brabham-BMW) at the last race of the season in
South Africa. It was
later rumoured that the Brabham team had been using illegal
gasoline in that race. It has however never been proved.
[32955]
1984 - 85
After Prost left, the team turned to
Patrick Tambay and Englishman
Derek Warwick to bring them back to
prominence. Despite a few good results, the team was not as
competitive in and as in the past, with other teams doing a better
job with turbo engines, some of which came from Renault themselves.
provided another F1 first, as the team ran a third car in
Germany that featured the first
in-car camera which could be viewed live by a
television audience. The car only lasted 8 laps
before a clutch problem forced it to retire. In 1985, major
financial problems emerged at Renault and the company could no
longer justify the large expenses needed to maintain the racing
team's competitiveness. CEO
Georges
Besse pared down the company's involvement in F1 from
full-fledged racing team to engine supplier for the season before
taking it entirely out of F1 at the end of that year.
Engine supplier
In
1989, Renault rejoined
Formula One as an engine supplier to
Williams and by the sixth round in
Canada, the team had already
secured their first Renault powered victory. Renault had also
pioneered the first
pneumatic
valved V10 engine in F1. Williams enjoyed signs of promise for
the next 2 years and by
1992, with the aid of
active suspensions, the Williams-Renault
was a World Championship-winning car, winning over half of the
races during the season.
Williams perfected their active suspensions for
1993 and won the Constructors' Title
in yet another dominant year with
Alain
Prost winning 7 of the 16 rounds.
1994 would prove to be the only time
Renault did not win the Drivers championship after Williams driver,
Ayrton Senna, the favourite to win the
title, was killed at the
1994
San Marino Grand Prix. This left the Brazilian's inexperienced
teammate,
Damon Hill, to take Senna's
seat as team leader, but by the
French Grand Prix, Hill was 37 points
behind Championship leader
Michael
Schumacher.
After a series of disqualifications for the
German
, Hill managed to close the gap down to 1 point
before the last race in Adelaide, but the two drivers
collided controversially and both retired from the race, making
Schumacher the drivers' champion. Schumacher was the only
driver to win a Drivers title during the time between 1992 and 1997
without a Renault engine, but Williams still retained the
Constructors' championship.
Benetton acquired Renault engines
for
1995 and their driver,
Michael Schumacher, managed to successfully defend his Drivers
title by 33 points from his nearest rival, Damon Hill, while
Benetton won their first, and only, Constructors title by 29
points. Williams won the next two seasons in both the Drivers' and
Constructors' championship with Damon Hill winning the title in
1996 and
Jacques Villeneuve in
1997.
Renault pulled out of Formula One at the end of 1997, coinciding
with the departure of
Adrian Newey, the
head of Williams' design team, who had designed all of the Renault
powered Williams' from 1992 onwards. However, the power unit was
still bought by teams 'off the shelf' for several years afterwards
by Benetton (where the engine was re-badged as
Playlife), Williams (where it was re-badged as
Mecachrome) and
BAR and
Arrows
(where it was re-badged as
Supertec).
On September 15, 2006, Renault announced that it had agreed to
supply
Red Bull Racing with engines
in
2007 and
2008. On November 1, 2006,
Red Bull Racing confirmed the use of Renault
engines and the transfer of the Ferrari units to
Scuderia Toro Rosso.
Renault's return in the 2000s
On March 16, 2000, Renault purchased
Benetton Formula Limited for $120 million
to return to Formula One. Renault maintained the Benetton name for
the
2000 and the
2001 seasons. When reporting the
purchase the
International Herald
Tribune commented that "the team will not race under the
Renault name until it is ready to win and reap the marketing
benefits."
2000
Members of the Renault F1 pit crew in
2002.
Despite the purchase by Renault, the team still used the Playlife
engines they had been using for the last two years. The drivers
were
Giancarlo Fisichella and
Alexander Wurz. The team scored 20
points, as well as 2 podium finishes in
Monaco and
Canada.
2001
Wurz left
the team in 2001 to become a test driver at McLaren
and was
replaced by British driver,
Jenson Button, who was on loan from
the Williams team. Button and
Fisichella scored 10 points for the team, including a podium finish
for Fisichella in
Belgium.
2002
In
2002, Benetton were
rebranded as Renault F1. Fisichella left to rejoin
Jordan.
The team replaced the Italian
with fellow
Italian Jarno Trulli. Button and
Trulli scored 23 points during the season.
2003
Despite outscoring his teammate during 2002, Button was dropped by
Renault in
2003.
His
replacement was Spaniard
Fernando Alonso, who had been impressive as
a test driver the previous year. Alonso won the
2003 Hungarian Grand Prix, the
first time Renault had won a Grand Prix since the
1983 Austrian Grand Prix. Renault
was innovative during this period producing non-standard designs
such as the 111° 10-cylinder engine for the 2003 RS23 which was
designed to effectively lower the center of gravity of the engine
and thus improve the car's handling. This eventually proved too
unreliable and heavy, so Renault returned to a more conventional
development route.
2004
In , the team were contenders for second place in the Constructors'
Championship. Trulli won the
Monaco Grand Prix, but his
relationship with Renault (particularly with team principal and
Trulli's ex-manager
Flavio Briatore)
deteriorated after he was consistently off the pace in the latter
half of the year, and made claims of favouritism in the team
towards Alonso (though the two teammates themselves remained
friendly).
Commentators regularly point to the
French Grand Prix as the final straw
for Briatore, where Trulli was overtaken by
Rubens Barrichello in the final stages of
the last lap, costing Renault a double podium finish at their home
Grand Prix. He subsequently announced he was joining
Toyota F1 for the following year and in fact left
Renault early, driving the Toyota in the last two races of the 2004
season. Hoping to secure second place in the Constructors'
Championship, Renault replaced Trulli with World Champion
Jacques Villeneuve for the final three
races. However, Villeneuve — away from F1 racing for almost an
entire season and struggling to acclimatise quickly to racing at
the premier level — did not impress, and the team finished third
behind
BAR.
2005
Giancarlo Fisichella was
Trulli's replacement for the
2005 season. He took advantage of a
rain-affected qualifying session to win the first race of the
season, the
Australian Grand
Prix.
Fernando Alonso then won
the next three races to build a considerable lead in the Drivers'
World Championship, thereby doing the same for Renault in the
Constructors' championship. Meanwhile, Fisichella failed to finish
several races.
After the San Marino Grand Prix, Renault
and Alonso's championship leads came under attack from a
fast-but-fragile McLaren-Mercedes
team and Kimi Räikkönen respectively for the
Drivers' Championship. McLaren took the lead of the
Constructors' World Championship by securing a one-two finish at
the
Brazilian Grand Prix,
but that was to be the race in which Alonso secured the Drivers'
title, becoming the youngest ever driver to do so. This achievement
was followed by a win in
China to secure the Constructors'
World Championship for Renault after McLaren driver
Juan Pablo Montoya's car was badly
damaged by a drain cover coming loose on the track,. This broke
Ferrari's six-year stranglehold on
that title. It was the first time Renault had won the title as a
manufacturer.
2006
Fernando Alonso and
Giancarlo Fisichella were retained for
2006, while test driver
Franck
Montagny was replaced by
Heikki
Kovalainen. The team's 2006 contender, the R26 - featuring a
seven speed gearbox made of
titanium, was
unveiled at a launch event on January 31.
Alonso won the opening
Bahrain
Grand Prix as well as the
Australian Grand Prix and
finished second in
Malaysia behind teammate
Fisichella to claim Renault's first one-two finish since
René Arnoux and
Alain Prost in 1982. Alonso took two more second
places, and then wins at his home grand prix in
Spain, and at the
Monaco Grand Prix. Fisichella took
8th, 6th and 3rd place finishes in the
San Marino Grand Prix,
European Grand Prix and the
Spanish Grand Prix.
The team celebrated its 200th Grand Prix at Silverstone, which was
won by Alonso. As the season progressed to its North American
stint, Alonso won the
Canadian
Grand Prix in Montreal, Canada. At the
U.S Grand Prix, Ferrari had a
distinct performance advantage over the whole weekend. However,
Renault were the fastest of all the
Michelin runners. Fisichella finished 3rd, while
Alonso finished 5th.
At the
French Grand Prix,
Renault were expected to be faster than Ferrari, but Ferrari again
had the advantage. Alonso ran third for most of the race, unable to
challenge the Ferraris of Schumacher and Massa. However, a tactical
switch to a two stop strategy enabled him to pass Massa and finish
second.
On 21 July 2006 the FIA banned the use of mass damper systems,
developed and first used by Renault and subsequently used by 7
other teams, including Ferrari.
Flavio Briatore claimed that McLaren had raised
the issue of the system's legality with the FIA. The system
used a spring-mounted mass in the nose cone to reduce the
sensitivity of the car to vibration. This was particularly
effective in corners and over kerbs to keep the tyres in closer
contact to the track surface than they would otherwise be. However
race stewards at the
German Grand
Prix deemed the system legal. The FIA announced its intention
to appeal that decision and Renault announced they would not race
with the system for fear of retrospective punishment if the appeal
was upheld. Renault's performance at the German Grand Prix was one
of their worst of the season; however, the team blamed blistering
of their Michelin tyres rather than the loss of the mass damper
system. The FIA International Court of Appeal met in Paris on
August 22 2006, to examine the appeal made by the FIA against the
decision of the German Grand Prix stewards. The Court ruled that
use of the device known as a Tuned Mass Damper is an infringement
of Article 3.15 of the Formula One Technical Regulations.
Points scored in the
Brazilian
Grand Prix secured the constructor's championship for Renault
in 2006.
On October 16, 2006, Renault announced that the Dutch banking giant
ING would replace
Mild Seven as title sponsor for three years
starting in .
2007
Renault confirmed Giancarlo Fisichella and Heikki Kovalainen as
their race drivers for 2007 with
Nelson Piquet, Jr. and
Ricardo Zonta as test drivers. The car for
2007, the
R27, was unveiled on 24
January 2007, and bore a new yellow, blue, orange and white livery
in deference to the corporate colours of ING. Renault engines were
also supplied to the
Red Bull Racing
team for the 2007 season.
Renault struggled in comparison to their form in previous seasons
in
Australia, with
Giancarlo Fisichella finishing
the race in 5th place. Rookie
Heikki
Kovalainen struggled even more than the Italian, spinning his
car as he chased
Toyota's Ralf Schumacher and ending up in 10th place.
Results didn't improve until the start of the European season,
although both drivers finished in the points in the next race at
Malaysia. Heikki
Kovalainen struggled in
Bahrain too, although the gap
between himself and Fisichella at the end of the race was not as
great as was seen at Melbourne, with Fisichella finishing only 8th.
The team's pace began to pick up in Barcelona, with both drivers
making it into Q3, setting competitive lap times in the race (4th
fastest lap for Kovalainen) and looking set for 5th and 8th, only
to be hampered by an identical problem on both fuel rigs, forcing
both drivers to make extra pitstops which dropped them back to 7th
and 9th.
On November 8, 2007 the
FIA accused Renault F1
of having McLaren F1 technical information in their possession.
According to the charge, the information in hand "
included the
layout and critical dimensions of the McLaren car as well as
details of McLaren's fuelling system, gear assembly, hydraulic
control system and suspension".
The hearing on this
matter took place in Monaco
on December
6, 2007. The charge faced by Renault F1 - breaching of
article 151c of the Sporting Regulations - was the same as that
faced by McLaren earlier on in 2007 in the
espionage controversy
involving Ferrari & McLaren. The FIA found Renault F1 in
breach of article 151c but did not penalize the team.
2008
It was announced on December 10, 2007 that Fernando Alonso had
signed with Renault F1 for . Alonso drove alongside promoted test
driver
Nelson Piquet, Jr., and
was believed to have secured number one status within the team. The
team started 2008 in a similar manner as the year before; Fernando
Alonso managed to garner fourth at the opening
Australian Grand Prix as a result
of a mistake from previous Renault employee Heikki Kovalainen.
However, form was still short of 2006 by a large degree over the
first half of the 2008 season.
The team brought new parts to the Spanish
Grand Prix
, including a new engine-cover, dubbed the
"Shark-fin", similar to the one introduced by Red Bull on their
RB4. Alonso managed to qualify
on the front row for that race on a light fuel-load, yet retired
with an engine-failure halfway through. Alonso's front row
qualifying performance in Spain was a rare moment of achievement
from the former world champion. Both cars retired at the
Canadian Grand Prix and Nelson
Piquet Jr., who retired from six of the first nine races, failed to
score until the
French Grand
Prix.
The
German Grand Prix
heralded a change in the team's fortune. Piquet Jr. benefited from
the deployment of the safety car to secure Renault's first podium
of the year with second. Both drivers scored at the
Hungarian Grand Prix although they
failed to pick up anything at Valencia two weeks later. Two fourth
places for Alonso in Belgium and Italy were a prelude to the
Singapore Grand Prix, in
which Alonso profited from the early crash of his team mate to
claim his first victory of the season, and Renault's first since
the
2006 Japanese Grand
Prix. This victory made Alonso and Renault the first ever
winners of a formula one race held under floodlights. Renault
underlined their return to the front at the subsequent
Japanese Grand Prix, in which
Alonso steered clear of
Lewis
Hamilton's first-corner mistake to record another win. Piquet
Jr. finished fourth in the team's best performance of the season. A
further double points finish in
China was followed by Alonso's
second place finish at the season-ending
Brazilian Grand Prix. The
Renault R28 was believed by many insiders to
have overtaken BMW Sauber by season's end as the closest challenger
to the domination of the sport by Ferrari and McLaren.
2009
Renault had been suspended for one race (the 2009 European Grand
Prix) due to the incident involving Fernando Alonso's wheel not
being fitted properly in the
2009 Hungarian Grand Prix, however
this has been overturned on appeal following a decision from the
FIA on 17 August 2009.
On 4 August,
Nelson Piquet, Jr.
was told by Renault he would not continue driving for them for the
rest of the season."I have received notice from Renault of its
intention to stop me from driving for them in the current F1
season," read a statement on Piquet's website. Piquet had described
the
2009 season as "the
worst period of my career" and had criticised team boss
Flavio Briatore. He was replaced by test
driver
Romain Grosjean as of the
European Grand Prix.
Driver Fernando Alonso confirmed that he would be leaving Renault
in favor of Scuderia Ferrari starting in 2010. He will remain with
Renault and finish out the 2009 season.
Race fixing allegations
During the 2009 season, the actions of Renault F1 during the 2008
season were examined over alleged race fixing. The issue surrounded
Nelson Piquet, Jr.'s crash during
the
2008 Singapore Grand
Prix which Renault team mate
Fernando Alonso went on to win. At the time,
Piquet, Jr. had characterised the incident as a simple mistake.
After Piquet, Jr. left the Renault team in August 2009, allegations
surfaced that this crash had been deliberate, to give an advantage
to Alonso. Following an
Fédération
Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) investigation in which
Piquet, Jr. stated he had been asked by Renault team principal
Flavio Briatore and engineer
Pat Symonds to stage the crash, on 4
September 2009 Renault were charged with conspiracy and race
fixing, and were due to face the
FIA World Motor Sport Council
in Paris on 21 September 2009. Initially, Renault and Briatore
stated they would take legal action against Piquet, Jr. for making
false allegations, however, before the 21 September meeting,
Renault announced they would not contest the charges, and that
Briatore and Symonds had left the team.
Future
Renault have been given a two-year suspended ban from Formula 1 on
21 September 2009 for their role in fixing the 2008 Singapore Grand
Prix.
In the mid 2000s, questions were raised regarding Renault's
commitment to its Formula One team, particularly after the
appointment of
Carlos Ghosn as CEO in
2005. Ghosn has a reputation as a ruthless businessman, nicknamed
"le cost cutter". Ghosn has time and again confirmed his belief in
Formula 1, both as an advertising vehicle and a substantial
technology investment. At the 2005 French Grand Prix, Ghosn set out
his policy regarding the company's involvement in motorsport: "We
are not in Formula One out of habit or tradition. We're here to
show our talent and that we can do it properly... Formula One is a
cost if you don't get the results. Formula One is an investment if
you do have them and know how to exploit them." After Renault won
both championships in 2006 for a second year, Ghosn said "It is an
important victory because it justifies the investment Renault has
made in Formula 1, and will make in the future. More and more,
Formula 1 is working as an investment for us, not a loss.". In May
2008, two years since Renault F1 dominated the sport, and amidst a
relatively weak season for the team, Ghosn again stated that
irrespectively of results, Renault would stay in F1 for 'many
years'. Renault have signed an agreement with Formula One
Management pledging its allegiance to Formula 1 until 2012.
Renault F1 has a research relationship with
Boeing, the aim of which is
"to investigate
technology collaboration projects of mutual interest."
Similar
relationships include that of McLaren
and BAE
Systems
.
Complete Formula One results
(
key) (results
in
bold indicate pole position)
References
-
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/formula_one/8343221.stm
- FIA bans controversial damper system
- ING replaces Mild Seven at Renault. Retrieved
October 16, 2006.
- Renault Charged With Having McLaren Data.
Retrieved November 8, 2007.
- International Court of Appeal - Decision.
Retrieved August 17, 2009.
- Renault suspended from next race. Retrieved
July 26, 2009.
- http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/67847 - Autosport:
Renault to stay in F1 'for many years'
- Boeing Company. (June 17, 2004). Boeing, Renault F1 Team to Collaborate on
Technology Development. Press Release.
[32956]
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