The Driver - Summer 2016 The Driver - Summer 2016 | Page 28

New people,
new vision

Renault F1 team
behind the

by

David Miller

T

he Renault name has been
synonymous with Formula One
since 1977. It has had its glory
years in the mid-2000s with backto-back driver championships from
Fernando Alonso, but most recently
the Renault name has lurked in the
background as an engine supplier.
Things changed this February for
the fourth largest automotive group
in the world when they completed its
takeover of the Lotus F1 team to once
again become part of the constructors’
championship. The Renault name is
nothing new to the grid, but the people
leading the way have changed and
appear to have their act together with
a three-to-five year plan in the works
coming straight from the top in RenaultNissan CEO Carlos Ghosn.
At the 2016 Canadian Grand Prix in
Montreal, I was able to spend some
time with a few of the top brass from

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THE DRIVER

the Renault Sport Formula One team
including President at Renault Sport
Jerome Stoll, Team Principal Frédéric
Vasseur and Canadian test driver
Nicolas Latifi.
Renault Sport might have had to
make a quick decision ahead of Lotus’
insolvency, but the plan according to
Stoll took a while and had many people
involved in that decision.
“The decision to come back to
Formula One as a manufacturer was not
an easy one,” said Stoll. “We felt it was
right for Carlos [Ghosn] to make that
announcement, because the project was
not just to come back to racing; it was
to develop awareness for the brand and

use different marketing tools to attract
more road customers.”
Being competitive and eventually
winning is the No. 1 goal for the Renault
Sport team, but they also want to tap
into the information received from
testing and racing, and transfer it
back to regular road cars for all of its
brands that include Nissan and Infiniti
in Canada. Additionally, making the
engine more compact is essential to the
Nissan-Renault group for the reduction
of emissions, as well as changing the
minds of customers that you can have a
1.6-litre engine with plenty of power.
“This year is a transitional year for
us,” adds Vasseur. “As our leader Ghosn

“The decision to come back to Formula One
as a manufacturer was not an easy one.”
—President at Renault Sport Jerome Stoll