2019 Renault F1 Team

[JordanMugen]

What would you do in their shoes?

What Renault really need to do to sell more cars is to cross and conquer the ideological divide that German cars are somehow "superior".

• To make sure buyers perceive that a Dacia (or Datsun, depending on market) budget car is on par or even superior to a Skoda (or Seat) budget car.
• To make sure buyers perceive that a Renault (or Nissan) mainstream car is on par or even superior to a Volkswagen mainstream car.
• To make sure buyers perceive that a Infinti prestige car is on par or even superior to a Audi, Mercedes-Benz or BMW prestige car.

Will winning Grands Prix do that? I doubt it, sadly. German car badge snobbery is so hard to combat -- Ferrari somehow bucks the trend being considered superbly engineered and built, however even Alfa Romeo has struggled for decades to be perceived as equal or superior in reliability and engineering to a BMW or Mercedes-Benz.

[Meanwhile, French cars are not perceived to be as reliable as Japanese cars either in the Australasian, East Asian or North American markets... Ironically Nissan doesn't suffer from that, even though Renaults (and Dacias) and Nissans (and Datsuns and Infinitis) use the same parts!]

Honda obviously have similar or even worse problems than Nissan in terms of selling cars in Europe. Europeans are notoriously agnostic to Asian cars ("rust buckets"?). Honda are obviously closing down their British ex-Rover factory, now that (1) Britain won't be in the EU anymore and (2) EU are lifting the tariff on imported vehicles from outside the EU anyway.

It is not the work of a moment to correct all these perceptions.

What would you do in their shoes?

So... Winning in F1 (or redirecting to WRC or Le Mans) is all great for preaching to the choir
of RenaultSport/Nismo motorsport enthusiasts. However, these people already drive a Megane RS or Nissan 370Z, so (unfortunately) there is little more to win there aside from some tasty merchandising revenue.

It's targeting that more casual Audi S4 (or especially "S-line"), Golf GTI buyer who barely cares about motorsport and is engrossed in the idea of German engineering that proves so difficult for Renault and Nissan to win over IMO.

It's certainly crucial that Renault should launch themselves (again) in North America. That Renault do not sell cars in North America is utterly absurd IMO.

[Phil]

You bring up a good point about 'image' and as you say, it's difficult to combat, since there are decades of prejudice and history that go with it. It's a bit like the image of Swiss watches. Having said that, I think Mercedes have greatly improved their image and I think their success in F1 and possibly the signing of Hamilton has done a great deal to help that. Of course, simply winning in F1 wasn't enough - they built the sporty cars to go with that success (mainly the A45AMG) and over the last decade, have been able gain a more exciting image and appeal to younger people.

Anyway, not everyone has the same cards to play and IMO Mercedes have had better cards all along, so it would be unfair to point fingers at Renault and say "do the same". If we concentrate on what it takes to make Renault a F1 winning team, the answer is simpler but equally complex. More importantly though, I think the answer has changed from what it was 5 years ago and I think that's one of the crucial points Cyril is talking about.

Ferrari has two paying customers, one of which is buying a lot of parts and possibly sharing intel. Mercedes has two customers too. Renault has just one who happens to be a similar sized team (if not larger) with a more successful heritage who definitely is not interested in sharing know-how.

5 years ago, Renault joined F1 and thought that as an engine manufacturer, they should easily be able to become 3rd or 4th behind Mercedes and Ferrari and eventually challenge them for wins and podiums. They were pretty well on track to become that, but some things went against them; They lost two paying teams (RedBull+Torro-Rosso) though gained one (McLaren), but more importantly, the midfield have moved closer to the front, especially Haas and Alfa who are now in close contention with Renault over that 4th place. From a PR point of view and as an engine manufacturer, this isn't good and Renault is feeling the pressure to justify the money HQ, investors and sponsors are throwing into the team who had a goal and was selling a vision of closing the gap to the front.

It's a tricky situation that. How do you explain to your investors how a team like Haas with a fraction of the resources and money is quicker? McLaren, Williams, even Racing-Point and Sauber (Alfa) have similar questions to answer; all these are teams that are or have been privateers, their own constructors if you like, with huge resources and facilities and they are being rivaled by a small team who is simply buying the (many) parts of Ferrari.

Renault, as are others (and Mercedes is not far behind in these questions, especially with the budget cap coming soon) are questioning if this is a F1 they want to be part of longterm or if they can even compete in successfully (successfully doesn't necessarily mean winning, but getting more out of it than what they are investing, both financially and in regards to image).

[PhillipM]

The trouble is, if you keep going like this, you're going to have Merc, Ferrari, and then 8 Merc and Ferrari B-teams.

They put the original rules in place to stop that sort of thing and then relaxed them and here we are again....

[PowerandtheGlory]

In terms of success and car sales and F1 budget it all seems to be a bit of a mixed up debate. The Renault Nissan (mitubishi) group sold more 'light' cars than any other brand, company, marque in the world. so if its based on Pure sales of Cars then Renault (with nissan) is the most successful.....If its Perception of the cars i.e performance (ferrari) engineering (merc) value (honda) is irrelevant to the F1 programme. Renault has long invested in sporting teams, formulas and engines, right from the first ever car race which i think they won.. The marque has gone circuit racing, rallying, F1, junior programmes... etc. Its been at the top of F1 in recent years as a engine maker (RB days.. quickly forgotten) manufacturer (Alonso 03 ' 04 etc..) Its never done this by throwing silly money at anything, even if the board agreed to increase Renault's budget in the f1 to near RB, levels you are talking about adding 100-200 million more to go 6-8 tenths a lap quicker. That in essence is the issue with F1 at present. Ferrari has leclerc on the grid in OZ on a 1.21 4 goresjean was 1.21 8.. why on earth would anyone in their right minds spend the difference between what Haas spend (who are a billion dollar tool manufacturing company) compared to ferrari to go 4 tenths quicker.. why then... For success? for exposure? marketing? prize funds? Has anyone considered the obvious. Once 1 team spends 500 million a year and wins, another team will spend 600, then the next will spend 700 and that's a vicious cycle. Being in F1 is not ultimately about Profit, but about Value. Its not great for 1 team to win 10 years in a row because people will get bored and switch off their TV's and so the whole point of the sport has gone. MERC would rather not win by 50 seconds each race. They would rather be seen beating Ferrari or Redbull in a fair fight.. That makes it more authentic, more believable and more successful.. We don't watch the British Football premiership because 1 team beats everybody else 10-0 every weekend. We watch it because almost every team can win on their day. You need to try to create that in F1 without losing the spirit of F1. Logic and Agile approach to increasing budget incrementally until your team is winning is still technically the most effective thing to do. Nobody will be impressed if a car company joins F1, dumps a Billion or something silly, wins straight away in the first year and then walks away in a few years. What's the point? What does the Sport, the brand or fans see in that?? everyone will think that all you have to do is spend a billion get any idiot to drive the car and then they can win.. that's not a sport.. The 2021 rules have got their work cut out..

[Mclarensenna]

My issue with your posts are that you are stuck in this assumption that Cyril is doing everything wrong and that if you swap him out for a different face but keep everything else the same, that the outcome would be very different. All you are basing everything off, are some public statements that you don't agree with it and comparing them with different teams with very different resources, budgets and outlooks. That simply doesn't work.

Perhaps you should get over your dislike for Cyril and as a kind of mental experiment, picture yourself in his shoes with the same budget constraints, the same (limited) resources and ask yourself which problems are real, which complaints have merit and what it effectively takes to compete with the might of both Ferrari & Mercedes. And while you're at it, same applies to McLaren too, as they're effectively in exactly the same position.

And lastly; what you define as "public whinging" is applying [political] pressure to the sport. It's part of the game and everyone does it. It happened when Ferrari got Mercedes fancy suspensions banned, when Mercedes and other teams questioned the legality of how Ferrari were using their battery, when other teams questioned both Mercedes and Ferrari about additives in the oil. Heck, one of the biggest political influences of the sport in the last decade was when Mercedes (among others) was pressuring F1 into using these new V6 turbos. Everyone does it, because F1 is a business.

I never said i dislike Cyril personally. I said he is doing a terrible job and not fit for this role at all and should be replaced and gave my reasoning. There is a difference. I like my brother but he would be an even worse F1 manager than Cyril. Saying that does not mean i like my brother any less than Cyril or anybody. Some people make good f1 managers some do not. That's life. Lets see if Bahrain the Renault is any better as in Australia it was 2 seconds off pole and nowhere near the top teams.

It's impossible for you to determine if he's doing a terrible job or not, because you don't know the targets he's been given by his bosses. If Renault want to spend x amount, that is what they will spend. It has nothing to do with Cyril.

Impossible?

Actually we do know Cyrils targets as he has given many targets over the years and he has failed big time to deliver on any of them.
In 2015 he stated he would bring a better engine. Renault spent all of 2014 developing a a new engine for 2015. He claimed it was alot more powerful, reliable and improved than the 2014 spec.
Then it gets into the car and it is massively down on power, blowing up 3 times more, and driveability was so bad the drivers stated they were getting whiplash.
Horner and Co were furious. They all said why not just give us the 2014 engine as is. Instead of giving us an updated engine that was worse in every single way.
Mercedes and Ferrari on the other hand updates brought massive increases in power reliability, drivebaility etc
Everybody else hit their targets instead of Cyril
To bring a worse engine is not a missed target. It is a complete 100% failure and should be fired immediately situation.

Then Cyril later in the year said we have a good update for brazil and only Ric took it. Ric said it had less power and was worse than before. Cyril kept insisting he hit the target again and Ric has been convinced it is slower by redbull. I remember some big arguments in Brazil about this between the 2 teams
Yet Cyril eventually retracted that statement admitting he lied the following year saying yes the updates actually made the engine worse. It took him at least a year to even realise he missed the target again.

Then in 2017 Cyril said he felt sorry for the teams with lower budgets as Renault will blow them all away during in-season with the development battle. Cyril set this in season target. What happened? He did not pull away at all target failed.
2017 Cyril said we need to change the engine architecture completely and this new 1 will have massive potential for development. 2018 rocks up his engine is nowhere.
He also had a target of catching Mercedes/Ferrari that year then states we missed the target again. We never expect Ferrari and Merc could keep growing this gap we made a mistake.
Now we need a completely new engine for 2019 again as we missed all our previous targets.

This is a small list. But yes cyril has basiclaly missed every single target he has set for himself and i am just scratching the surface here about Cyril.
So yes i am making the Cyril claim he did a terrible job and should have been replaced years ago.

[Ground Effect]

I never said i dislike Cyril personally. I said he is doing a terrible job and not fit for this role at all and should be replaced and gave my reasoning. There is a difference. I like my brother but he would be an even worse F1 manager than Cyril. Saying that does not mean i like my brother any less than Cyril or anybody. Some people make good f1 managers some do not. That's life. Lets see if Bahrain the Renault is any better as in Australia it was 2 seconds off pole and nowhere near the top teams.

It's impossible for you to determine if he's doing a terrible job or not, because you don't know the targets he's been given by his bosses. If Renault want to spend x amount, that is what they will spend. It has nothing to do with Cyril.

Impossible?

Actually we do know Cyrils targets as he has given many targets over the years and he has failed big time to deliver on any of them.
In 2015 he stated he would bring a better engine. Renault spent all of 2014 developing a a new engine for 2015. He claimed it was alot more powerful, reliable and improved than the 2014 spec.
Then it gets into the car and it is massively down on power, blowing up 3 times more, and driveability was so bad the drivers stated they were getting whiplash.
Horner and Co were furious. They all said why not just give us the 2014 engine as is. Instead of giving us an updated engine that was worse in every single way.
Mercedes and Ferrari on the other hand updates brought massive increases in power reliability, drivebaility etc
Everybody else hit their targets instead of Cyril
To bring a worse engine is not a missed target. It is a complete 100% failure and should be fired immediately situation.

Then Cyril later in the year said we have a good update for brazil and only Ric took it. Ric said it had less power and was worse than before. Cyril kept insisting he hit the target again and Ric has been convinced it is slower by redbull. I remember some big arguments in Brazil about this between the 2 teams
Yet Cyril eventually retracted that statement admitting he lied the following year saying yes the updates actually made the engine worse. It took him at least a year to even realise he missed the target again.

Then in 2017 Cyril said he felt sorry for the teams with lower budgets as Renault will blow them all away during in-season with the development battle. Cyril set this in season target. What happened? He did not pull away at all target failed.
2017 Cyril said we need to change the engine architecture completely and this new 1 will have massive potential for development. 2018 rocks up his engine is nowhere.
He also had a target of catching Mercedes/Ferrari that year then states we missed the target again. We never expect Ferrari and Merc could keep growing this gap we made a mistake.
Now we need a completely new engine for 2019 again as we missed all our previous targets.

This is a small list. But yes cyril has basiclaly missed every single target he has set for himself and i am just scratching the surface here about Cyril.
So yes i am making the Cyril claim he did a terrible job and should have been replaced years ago.

You left out what he did a "terrible" job in 2016. You have to realize that once Renault came back as a fully fledge works team, they stopped working on a Red Bull timeline. As far as we can see, their still on course for where they want to be. Yes, they slipped back with their rate of development last year, so they have a bigger chunk to make up in 2019 and potentially 2020. It's irrelevant bringing up 2014, 2015 etc. Renault delivering a bad engine should reflect more on Remy Taffin, but he's still there.

[JordanMugen]

The trouble is, if you keep going like this, you're going to have Merc, Ferrari, and then 8 Merc and Ferrari B-teams.

Sounds just like DTM! The team orders should be fun.

[Morteza]

Ricciardo gets new Renault F1 chassis for Bahrain GP as precaution

[Capharol]

Ricciardo gets new Renault F1 chassis for Bahrain GP as precaution

one out of Titanium

[PowerandtheGlory]

Ricciardo gets new Renault F1 chassis for Bahrain GP as precaution

one out of Titanium

I heard it was a carbon-avocado mix, called carbocado......

[Mansell89]

Big weekend in Bahrain for Renault sport?

I feel it’s a bit of a crossroads in some ways.

Yes, it’s the second race of the season, but this circuit is a great test of a power unit. Will they display that they are finally back at the top end of performance?

Get it right this weekend and it would be a massive boost for their whole team.

If they are off the pace and Honda are on it, the pressure ramps up.

[Mclarensenna]

Big weekend in Bahrain for Renault sport?

I feel it’s a bit of a crossroads in some ways.

Yes, it’s the second race of the season, but this circuit is a great test of a power unit. Will they display that they are finally back at the top end of performance?

Get it right this weekend and it would be a massive boost for their whole team.

If they are off the pace and Honda are on it, the pressure ramps up.

Sainz has had to replace the MGU K already. They are only allowed 2 per entire season and his lasted just 11 laps of the first race. Sainz stated it is a weak point of the car. The MGU K has had massive reliability issues for years and still we see no evidence of any improvements whatsoever. This sounds like a complete and utter disaster!

Renault will surely have to turn down the power for Bahrain to help reliability so it looks like all the extra power that Cyril was bragging about over the winter comes with serious reliability issues.
Lets hope Renault can turn things around in Bahrain but so far Renault has not impressed or lived up to any of their pre season expectations.

[Capharol]

Big weekend in Bahrain for Renault sport?

I feel it’s a bit of a crossroads in some ways.

Yes, it’s the second race of the season, but this circuit is a great test of a power unit. Will they display that they are finally back at the top end of performance?

Get it right this weekend and it would be a massive boost for their whole team.

If they are off the pace and Honda are on it, the pressure ramps up.

Sainz has had to replace the MGU K already. They are only allowed 2 per entire season and his lasted just 11 laps of the first race. Sainz stated it is a weak point of the car. The MGU K has had massive reliability issues for years and still we see no evidence of any improvements whatsoever. This sounds like a complete and utter disaster!

Renault will surely have to turn down the power for Bahrain to help reliability so it looks like all the extra power that Cyril was bragging about over the winter comes with serious reliability issues.
Lets hope Renault can turn things around in Bahrain but so far Renault has not impressed or lived up to any of their pre season expectations.

do we have groundhog day?, we heard these in 2016,2017,2018 and 2019 all what Renault tells repeats every year ... result is known

[Jambier]

Big weekend in Bahrain for Renault sport?

I feel it’s a bit of a crossroads in some ways.

Yes, it’s the second race of the season, but this circuit is a great test of a power unit. Will they display that they are finally back at the top end of performance?

Get it right this weekend and it would be a massive boost for their whole team.

If they are off the pace and Honda are on it, the pressure ramps up.

You can't compare Red Bull with Renault.
So there is no comparison possible with Honda.

Renault is a low budget team in the midfield. There is nothing more to see from them....
Until they decide to fire Abiteboul and add 200 millions to their budget.

Until that, they are waiting for 2021 regulations / budget cap

Being a fan of Renault really is a pain this year. But regarding the engine side no worries, I think it's not so far from a Mercedes now.
We can see that even Honda is not so far. So engines are not the problem for anyone in 2019

[factory_p]

Renault will surely have to turn down the power for Bahrain to help reliability so it looks like all the extra power that Cyril was bragging about over the winter comes with serious reliability issues.

Guys, unreliability isn't always linked to power output. Especially on a MGU.