Former McLaren driver Kevin Magnussen has finally been confirmed alongside British rookie Jolyon Palmer after Pastor Maldonado was dropped in the last week amid late sponsorship payments.
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“All (Renault motor sport) activities will be brought under the Renault Sport Racing banner led by Cyril Abiteboul as Managing Director and Frederic Vasseur as Racing Director, responsible for sporting and technical matters”. The ex-Lotus driver still has a chance to race in 2016 if Manor decides to pick him up for their driver lineup.
Renault Sport – as it will be known in the paddock – pulled the covers off its new RS16 at its base near Paris earlier today.
As Renault set out its (racing) stall today, Jerome Stoll, Chief Performance Officer and President of Renault Sport Racing, made clear the reasons for the French manufacturer’s return.
While Renault bosses felt they were gaining little positive exposure from the Red Bull deal, they hope a full return to the F1 circuit can have a similar impact to the glory days of its 2005 and 2006 championship-winning teams – its only outright successes.
“You see it is not good for Mercedes, it is not good for Renault, Ferrari – we all have interest to change that”.
There will also be a Renault Sport Cars division that oversees development of Renault’s performance-oriented road cars. The premium arm of Nissan has always been associated with the Red Bull F1 team, and will now take up a second role in the sport, alongside its Renault-Nissan Alliance partner to “enhance its involvement through a specific technology program developing the second generation of energy recovery systems (ERS) for the F1 power unit”.
The new F1 vehicle features the French marque’s existing R.E. 16 power unit, alongside an in-house manufactured chasis. They will also continue with their driver development programme, to hopefully mould their own stars of the future.
He completed only 10 of 19 races last season, though scored 27 points compared to just two in 2014. The opportunities are nearly endless and will serve as a great motivator for the technical teams across Renault Sport Cars and the Renault brand.
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Official F1 testing commences later this month. Sebastien Buemi has won two of the three opening rounds of 2015-16 for the Renault e.dams outfit.
