Renault: Caught in the F1 crossfire

Having originally analysed the polemics surrounding the question of Formula 1's 'engine unfreeze', this column risks belabouring this extremely contentious debate. Yet so vital is the topic to F1's future sporting and technical health that at times during the Russian Grand Prix weekend it rivalled even Jules Bianchi's shocking accident as the dominant topic in the pitlane, with virtually every team boss throwing his (or her) tuppenny-ha'penny's worth.

The background to discussions in Russia is that Mercedes executed an abrupt U-turn, having agreed an unfreeze during a meeting of all team bosses - save for Force India, whose invite got lost in translation - in Singapore. Mercedes motorsport boss Toto Wolff, who, of course, holds the whip hand by dint of having the gold standard power unit, and freely admits to the about-face for governance reasons.

"We have already voted against it in the Strategy Group and I don't think we will change our mind in the next month or whenever the meeting will take place," the Austrian said at Sochi.

"We have rules and we have governance, and the governance is in place in order to avoid quick, kneejerk decisions being made that upset stability, upset the commercial set-up, and I strongly believe you cannot change rules in October for the following year just because you think they don't suit you."

This came as no surprise, as this column had predicted when it investigated the matter in the wake of the Singapore meeting.

In Singapore this writer interviewed Cyril Abiteboul, Renault Sport F1's managing director, a post he took up in July after briefly heading up Caterham. The Frenchman is no stranger to Renault's F1 operation, having held senior positions within various divisions, including Enstone as business development manager prior to Renault's sale of its world championship-winning team to Lotus.

Renault is reshaping its relationship with Red Bull after a tough 2014 © XPB

He freely admitted that Renault Sport F1 lost its way, and was "a bit confused ourselves, with the different customers we have and with the different objectives we had with the different customers. I think Formula 1 is a simple game. We need to have very simple rules, very simple objectives and targets, and very simple communication."

The objective is, thus, simple: "The target is to be world champion. And right now it's to be with a single team to be world champion, and unfortunately the state of play in Formula 1 makes it common sense that it's only Red Bull [of Renault's teams] that's in a position to do that. So I think there should be an easy decision, we should be flat-out to make sure that Red Bull is back in a position to win on every single track again as quickly as possible."

He clarified his choice of words: "I'm saying 'on every single track', because we should not forget there have been a few wins for the Red Bull/Renault package this year, which is not that bad for a year fully dominated by Mercedes. It was under certain circumstances, but from my perspective there is no way an uncompetitive package can win a race in modern Formula 1."

"Mercedes have done a fantastic job," he acknowledged, but added that all three manufacturers deserve credit. "We [collectively] have done a fantastic job. If you look at Monza, the lap times, race duration, testify the job that we have been capable of doing. We're doing this type of speed, 360, which is 20km/h more than the previous package.

"We also compared the lap time, the best lap time in qualifying is 1.5 seconds, mass corrected, faster than previous cars. It's fantastic. All this with 35 per cent [less] fuel consumption."

There is absolutely no argument that Mercedes beat the rest through having the best-integrated package, and Abiteboul believes Renault should concentrate on one team. His task is eased considerably by Lotus's defection to Mercedes, leaving the way clear for Renault to concentrate primarily on Red Bull, then its junior sister Toro Rosso, then Caterham, which in any event uses RBR rear-end technology.

"Its about seizing the opportunity. So our approach has to be opportunistic. Right now the team that is in a position to win the world championship is Red Bull. You could have the view that we could be in a position to define who could be the next one instead of Red Bull, but that would be giving too much weight to Renault. I think even the hierarchy of the teams that we're with right now, there's no way that we can make a team more competitive than Red Bull at the moment."

The graduate of the prestigious Ecole Nationale Superieure d'Informatique et Mathematiques Appliquees in Grenoble stresses that "concentrate" does not imply "degraded service, or degraded product to other teams. First, we've got the regulations that ensure we provide the same product; there is one type of specification that is homologated.

Cyril Abiteboul © XPB

"Beyond that the philosophy of Renault has always been to provide similar levels of service to everyone. But now we also have to be a bit pragmatic. I was at Caterham, does Caterham need the sort of dynamometer time Red Bull needs? We should not mix up degraded service and service that suits the purpose of the customer. Red Bull will have more weight when it comes to installation."

There are also commercial considerations: As with other power unit suppliers, Renault recovers only a fraction of its development costs from customers, with income basically covering marginal (direct) costs of supply.

"It's true there is an impact on the marketing. Unfortunately the way that the grid is structured right now, if you look at the coverage Caterham has, its reduced, even though I think maybe they deserve from a pure sporting perspective.

"Right now, all the exposure we get is from Red Bull and Toro Rosso. This is what I'm saying, that we would cope with the fact that we have only those two customers."

As previously outlined in these pages, Renault, having withdrawn from full team ownership, is the only power unit supplier without a direct voice at Strategy Group/F1 Commission level (at present: Honda next year finds itself in that position). Does Renault regret that?

"It's not very political in the sense that there's nothing we can do about it. There is a very clear structure in Formula 1, there is very clear governance that is highly questionable for other reasons. But just as there is the F1 Strategy Group that does not give a voice to all teams, engine manufacturers do not exist in the system of Concorde, in the system of FIA and FOM.

"There is a power unit working group, and I would tend to think and to hope that most of the [unfreeze] recommendations were based on the conclusions from the PWG."

How much input does Renault have at PWG level - given that working groups have zero executive authority, providing recommendations only?

"We had just as much input, as we have three manufacturers. I say three, but it's a total of four, because Honda is already sitting in on these discussions and I think that's fair. So absolutely no problem, no issue with that."

As an engineer, does Abiteboul prefer regulatory restrictions, or is total freedom the way to go?

"Certainly not. From our perspective, even though we're only involved in engine activities right now, we see our involvement to a certain degree going further than that. We want to be part of the show, we want to be part of the human story of Formula 1.

"If I make that statement I do it on purpose because what I mean is that we do not want to over-invest in engine technology. We have the sort of regulations we want, the sort of regulation that give a voice and put some emphasis on the importance of energy recovery systems, fuel efficiency - we've got that."

Renault thinks the current engine model is not sustainable

Then comes the 64-million Euro statement: "So now that we've got that, from my perspective we should have a set of regulations that as quickly as possible narrows the bandwidth of performance between engine manufacturers, so we do not overspend on those technologies.

"From my perspective, development spend on one hand and cost to teams on the other hand is extremely high, so we need to put that under control as quickly as possible. Renault is very sensitive, very sensible to that fact..."

Given the high costs of Formula 1 and the fact that Renault has lost Lotus without a replacement in sight, how would any unfreeze affect the programme commercially? After all, costs will increase, while income from customers is set to reduce.

"One thing we need to obviously verify is cost versus price," he says. "It's not because costs are going up as a supplier that price needs to go up. Sometimes you think it's important for the long-term strategy of your activity of supplier to absorb incremental costs without that impacting on price. So that's just a comment, because there's a lot of discussion between Mercedes and Ferrari through the media about it."

Then Abiteboul narrows it down: "I think the current engine model is not really sustainable; not just for Renault, for everyone. If you think how [hurtful] this year has been for a lot of teams. That's very much down to the economics of the new power unit. So we have to see how we can improve the situation, maybe in the medium term. In the short term we are committed, we need to fix our engine."

While the defection of Lotus is small beer in the greater scheme of things, he concedes there is emotional loss: "What I can say is that the loss of Lotus means something, because that's where I started with F1, it's also been a fantastic partner of Renault for many years, starting from Benetton, Renault F1 Team to Lotus. So emotionally this is a loss.

"From a marketing perspective it would have been a loss if the team was higher up on the grid. It's not really a loss from where they are now - you see the amount of exposure they get is quite small, and from a financial perspective it's not really a loss..."

Abiteboul's Singapore comments regarding unfreezes were superseded by developments, so he provided an update in Sochi. While reluctant to discuss topics to which Renault was not a direct party, he is clearly disappointed.

"The first thing is that, as always, we are not in the Strategy Group," he said, before clarifying: "I'm not saying that to complain, but to say that whatever I relay is very much based on what I hear from either Red Bull, or the FIA.

"We (Jerome Stoll, President of Renault Sport was present at Sochi) had meetings with Jean Todt, with Bernie [Ecclestone] also, so that we can get as much information as possible, because sometimes it's not perfectly aligned.

Lotus will switch to Mercedes power in 2015 © XPB

"Let's put it this way, there are different sides of the picture, so we try to get a round picture. Unfortunately we have no choice but to work on the assumption that there will be an unfreeze. If that can't happen, we will save it for the following season.

"Anyway, when you look at today's result [best cars seventh/eighth], you see we have an awful lot of work to do - reliability and performance, and therefore whatever we develop will be useful, either for 2015 or for 2016.

"First we need to understand the governance. From my perspective, what we need to confirm is the point raised by these discussions about unfreezing: how do you change at that point in time in the season the regulations for subsequent seasons?

"We are now mid-October, therefore clearly past the deadline of June, or March next year, so we needed to understand exactly the dynamics of different teams and different positions.

"The question is not exactly 'unfreeze or not', the question is more specific than that - I don't want to enter into details - but the question is wide enough so different persons may feel this might hurt either their sporting or commercial positions. So we really needed to have a direct picture presented to us by the FIA.

"That's what we've done, so now we have a better idea, but as I say, it doesn't change that for the time being we will be working flat-out in partnership with Red Bull to get as much as we can, either for January or for July 2015, or if not, for '16."

The engine unfreeze remains as clear as mud...