Big Tea wrote: ↑02 Sep 2019, 16:37
Jambier wrote: ↑02 Sep 2019, 14:43
Big Tea wrote: ↑02 Sep 2019, 13:41
He left RBR as Max was going to be golden boy. By 2021 LeClerk will be 2 years in and well established as the 'main man' even if not de facto No1.
Possible, he went to RBR when Seb was king.
2021 Renault may re emerge as in the top group
Top group ?
If you mean top of the midfield or best of the rest, why not.
Fighting to win, no chance
Well they have won championships before, and two years is a long time.
Ric and Ocon, get the right man in managing and the top 3 could become top 4. Or even 5 if Mclaren step up
Two years is actually a very short amount of time. There is more than just the right manager, he needs the right engineers, the right team in place. If they brought a new guy in now, it would take him most of the year to learn the team and who needs replacing, identifying targets and bringing them in around their existing contracts. At best a newer team could build a new 2021 car but in reality that new team needs time to gel, to get on the same page, to make a car or two and evolve it into something competitive.
People often mistake MErcedes as just making a great 2014 car out of nowhere but in reality they made a awesome 2013 car with one flaw and they fixed that flaw for 2014. Lowe has said several times the 2013 car was a bigger step than the 2014 car, revolution vs evolution I think he put it.
You need a few years of learning to make a great car together before you can actually make a great car. I think the chance of Renault making a remotely competitive car in 2021 are extremely low. If they fired Cyril now and got in a top team boss (and who is even available with Vasseur at Sauber), it would still be probably 2023 before they might be competitive.
Even then it's an issue, the budget cap is going to work massively against Renault, while they push hard for it. Merc/Ferrari/RBR are testing 2021 concept cars, learning what they can, doing runs in wind tunnels and putting entire teams to work spending millions a year getting ready for 2021. Renault barely have the budget to make next years car strong.
We'll go into 2021 with a potential budget cap and lets say it's enforced and Renault can now have a similar effective budget. Well the top 3 teams spent 300-400million building their 2021 car and millions extra in 2019/20 doing R&D on the project. Renault now spent 180-200mil on the 2021 car, hit a budget cap and now have to compete with vastly more expensively researched/built cars with no chance to 'catch up'. Without a budget cap if they had 200mil they could increase spending and start to match them. With a budget cap to me it just limits their ability to catch up. In reality they needed a budget cap in place 2 years before a new regulation period to prevent this and as such it's the next new regulation period after 2021 in which the budget cap might level the playing field.
