Renault restructure aero department

The reigning world champions have spent the start of the season trying to understand why their current car lacked the consistency and speed of its predecessor.

Now that that work has been completed, with the team having made a clear step forward since the Monaco Grand Prix, they have decided to make a personnel change to try and ramp up development of the car to close the gap on their rivals.

The restructuring means that head of aerodynamics Dino Toso has been promoted to the new role of Director of Aerodynamic Technology. In that new position he will take responsibility for the creative direction of the aero programmes while also looking at how best to exploit Renault's new CFD centre.

Toso's new role will free him up from responsibility for the team's wind tunnel. That job now comes under the remit of team's new head of aerodynamics James Allison, who is taking the position on an interim basis until the end of the year. He was deputy technical director.

"In simple terms, we have split the previous role of Head of Aerodynamics into two because the workload was becoming too great for one person," said technical director Bob Bell.

""Dino Toso, our current head of aero, has been promoted to a newly-created role of Director of Aerodynamic Technology, which will allow him to focus on the creative direction of the car's aerodynamics - and a number of very interesting future projects.

"The day-to-day job of driving the creative programme in the wind tunnel will then be the responsibility of our Head of Aerodynamics. On an interim basis, that role will be filled by our Deputy Technical Director James Allison."

The changes had originally been planned to take place at the end of the year, but the team felt the moves should happen now to allow them to make the most of the remainder of 2007, while also ramping up efforts to make their 2008 car a true championship contender.

Bell added: "We have said all along that we would tackle our problems in a logical manner, and we have done so. The phase of problem-solving is now at its end, and for the rest of the season, the challenge will be to out-develop our rivals. In parallel, we must ensure that the 2008 car is once again a car capable of challenging for the world championship.

"One advantage of Dino's new role will be improved communication with our Chief Designer Tim Densham, and we believe this is the right time to make the change to ensure that our work for 2008 progresses at full speed, while the team in the wind tunnel continues to push forward with development for the remainder of the 2007 season. "