Symonds rules out management role

Symonds, who is the team's executive director of engineering, will have a less hands-on role at races this year as he hands over much of his responsibility to new chief race engineer Alan Permane.

Although the changes, first revealed by autosport.com in November, prompted talk that Symonds could be being groomed to take over eventually from Briatore, he has firmly ruled out such suggestions.

"No, absolutely not," he said on stage at the Autosport International Show on Friday. "I am an engineer at heart. That is where my strengths are and that is where my interests are.

"The change of role at Renault is really that I want to give the young guys their head a little bit. We have got so many good people in our company, and so much depth in it, that if I was an old fogey sitting there forever then they are going to leave.

"So I want them to move on. I hope that we have brought them up well and trained them and want them to take responsibility. But for our company we have to protect the future.

"F1 is going through an awful lot of changes in the next few years. I really want to spend a lot more time thinking about those changes, the implications of them, perhaps trying to stop team principals and the FIA rushing into ideas that perhaps were not thought through in as much detail as I like to think about things.

"And try and guide the sport in a direction that is not just good for us as Renault but is also good for the sport in general."

Symonds believes that his new role will not result in any downturn of form for the team, or the kind of difficulties Williams experienced when technical director Patrick Head moved aside in 2004.

"We have had a very long transition," he explained. "A lot of the guys who are moving up the company have been assuming part of their roles really over the last 18 months now, so well over one season. I am not going to step aside.

"Patrick really did step aside. He moved down to London, he started living there and started spending less time at the factory. I unfortunately still have to go to work every day to pay the mortgage. So I will be there and I will be watching things.

"We are not doing it by taking new people from outside, which is what Williams did, we are doing it by promoting internally people we know and people we trust. I will be keeping an eye on things."