We walk into the machine shop and are greeted by some of the more senior members of staff working at benches with drills and hammers, the kind of environment you’d expect to find in a school design and technology class. You’d expect everything about a Formula 1 factory to be insanely complicated, like walking through a set of a sci-fi movie, but it isn’t. Our first few minutes in the factory are fascinating. To understand how Renault will force its way to the front of the grid once again, and to see how a Formula 1 team prepares for a new season, I took a trip to Renault’s headquarters in order to claim a title in Formula 1 you need to have a good home and a strong team, a solid base from which to grow. The goal? To get the Renault name back to the front of the F1 grid – an ambitious target, for sure, but what’s the point of being in F1 if you don’t have a goal?
But 2016 saw Renault reignite its constructor ambitions, buying back Lotus F1, partnering up with Infiniti (formerly Red Bull’s partner for the 2010-13 four constructor titles and Sebastian Vettel’s four drivers’ titles) and creating the Renault Sport F1 Team. Renault’s more recent F1 history has been complicated to say the least, having dropped away from Formula 1 as a constructor in 2011, becoming Lotus Renault GP and Lotus F1.
Despite a difficult entry into the sport in 1977, over the course of several decades Renault went on to deliver two Constructor Championships, 10 titles as an engine supplier, and seven world champion drivers with 11 drivers’ championships, despite a hiatus from the sport from 1986-2002. The retention of a team's chassis name is often linked to the receiving of prize money due from the previous season, although Renault have already been negotiating with Bernie Ecclestone over receiving additional 'historical' payments in recognition of their status as past title winners.The Renault name is synonymous with F1. That led to the latter title sponsoring the Enstone team, which created the confusing situation of two Lotus-branded teams on the grid in 2011 before Fernandes switched his team's name to Caterham. The Lotus name is one of the most famous in F1 history - although the team currently carrying the brand is not linked to the original Team Lotus founded by Colin Chapman, which won seven Constructors' Championships between 19.Īfter Team Lotus folded in 1994, Tony Fernandes ran his start-up outfit under the Lotus name under licence from Malaysian car firm Proton in 2010 before the two sides became embroiled in a bitter legal dispute. Right now we have a license to use the name Lotus - and that license will be terminated. "Then the team will not be called Lotus - then the name will fall out of Formula 1.
Lotus last ran under the Renault name in 2011, albeit with title sponsorship from Group Lotus
0 kommentar(er)
