Renault’s new CEO, Luca Di Meo, visited his F1 team with some surprisingly reassuring messages last weekend in Barcelona, despite the team struggling to make inroads into the midfield.

Cyril Abiteboul, Renault F1’s main team, says he is reassured by the strategic plan being drawn up by Renault’s new managing director Luca De Meo.

Freshly appointed CEO of Renault since July 1, 2020, the Italian Luca De Meo, who has been crowned with the success of the Fiat 500 and the recovery of the Seat brand, has agreed to come to the rescue of the Renault group, whose losses in the first half of 2020 amounted to more than 7.3 billion.

The Renault group, already in difficulty before the coronavirus pandemic and definitively shaken with the Carlos Ghosn affair, decided to reduce its costs by about 2 billion euros over three years, which cast doubt on the continuity of the French manufacturer in F1.

But last weekend, Luca De Meo was present for the first time on a Formula 1 circuit with the Renault team and according to Cyril Abiteboul the big boss wanted to be very reassuring about the role that F1 will play in the strategic plan he is developing to turn the group around.

“It’s someone who is discovering the Renault group. He actually started in his job on July 1st and is touring all the sites, and the track is a site like any other. He started his job on July 1st and he’s touring all the sites, and the track is a site like any other,” explains Abiteboul on Canal+.

“He will also come to visit us in Viry [where the Renault F1 engine plant is located] at the end of next week, so he knows that he has a very large, very broad roadmap with a situation of the Renault group that we know.

“But also with reassuring messages about the role that F1 will have to play in the rebuilding, in the transformation of Renault that it is in the process of undertaking, in the process of building.

“He is developing this strategic plan and indeed motor sport as a whole will have a role to play and that is what is most reassuring.

“In addition to the fact that he is a Formula One connoisseur, he has the ability to measure the difficulty, the level of competition and the time it takes to build a successful team.”

Let’s not forget either that the Renault F1 team has signed two-time world champion Fernando Alonso from the 2021 season. The Spaniard will join the French manufacturer’s team for two seasons.