It’ll be four years since Renault Sport F1 re-entered Formula 1 and they did so by acquiring a team that had been poached, pillaged and reduced in scope, size and talent. Still, I considered Renault’s return to be a project over time and as they have the resources and pedigree to win in F1, they just needed the time and structure to return to glory.
Sure, maybe the last four years haven’t produced glory yet and it is taking slightly longer than anticipated to be competitive but I still believe they may get there if they can get the engine power and reliability issues solved and bolt that on to a much better chassis.
According to Nick Chester, he team’s chassis technical director, they are making significant progress with the chassis.
“There’s a lot going on with the 2019 car and we’re well advanced in making the first chassis.
“We’ve got the gearbox, which will be tested soon. We’re finishing design work for parts such as the cooling, suspension and the bodywork.
“It’s flat out at this time of the year as we have to get through a lot of drawings to get the car made.
“It’s been busy and we’re making strong progress.”
It’ll be hugely important that they get these things sorted in 2019 for Daniel Ricciardo who is pinning his F1 career on the team’s ability to overcome their deficits. He’s leaving Red Bull and its budding young champion, Max Verstappen, for what he hopes are greener pastures at Renault and if they aren’t, he may have made a serious mistake.
I said at the time of Renault’s hiring Nico Hulkenberg, the team are making the right moves with the right talent to remove driver issues and focus on the car. In Nico they have a very good drivers so they need not worry about that, what they needed to focus on was the car.
With the car sorted, they would now have a stellar driver lineup with Nico and Daniel and this duo should be able to race at the sharp end of the grid and challenge for podiums or wins should the team deliver a car that’s on song. If it isn’t, both team and driver will be gutted.
Hat Tip: Autosport
Every Aussie (and there’s a lot of us as you know) is hoping the same thing.
Everything goes in cycles, especially things that dominate, whether it be companies, countries or F1 teams. The Merc dominance will end soon and another team will take it’s place, I’m hoping that it will DR in a Renault.
We also hope McLaren can get their chassis going and Honda has decent power for Red Bull, otherwise 2019 is going to be 2018 all over again.
There’a part of me that thinks if Red Bull comes on song with Honda power really delivering, that does not send very positive message about McLaren but I have to think that a partnership has to be a good fit in more than just showing up with the best engine. It was being designed and developed and McLaren has their way of doing things too. In some ways I’m thinking the two cultures just didn’t work and that’s odd considering it did in the past and Ron was still there so where did it go wrong? This may all be… Read more »
Cyril Abiteboul has been promising Renault will be great “next year” since they returned. But after three years they now have the worst engine on the grid, and are 1 second slower than their customer team with the same engine. Two great drivers won’t solve the lassitude – they need a new technical team with more vision and less politics.
There’s a part of me that wonders about Cyril. He was in lower formulas if memory service correctly and came into F1 with one of the new teams. Was it Caterham or HRT I think. I thought it was a surprising move for Renault to move him into team leader role.
There seemed to be politics internally with leadership and now another leader has just left. Watching what Fred Vasuer has done at Sauber, I am wondering if they have the right guy. Dunno, just thinking out loud.