Daily #F1 News and Comment: Wednesday 16th April 2014

This page will be updated throughout the day. Please if you are on Twitter press the tweet button below. If you re-write and tweet individual story headlines don’t forget to include #F1. You may not realise how hugely important this is and has helped grow our community significantly. Previously on TheJudge13 #F1 History: Chinese Grand … Read more

Renault do a huge U-turn

A bizarre mentality

thejudge13 reported on October 9th what I considered a rather strange story emanating from Renault. Here’s an excerpt from that day;

“Apparently Renault has said it will not provide any more teams with engines as it has 3 customers already. So Marussia and HRT needn’t bother knocking on the door of the Renault Chateau huh? The reason given by Jean-Francois Caubet, Managing Director of Renault Sport is that – (paraphrased) these 2 teams are rubbish and its bad for Renault’s image.

He tells Ferrari and Mercedes they need to do their fair share and supply 4 teams like Renault does now. This Gallic thinking is seriously flawed, because one would imagine the research and development costs are so high, building a few extra units for a couple more teams would share the cost around better for everyone”.

I then made a few disparaging comments about Jean-Francois and his possible drinking habits. Of course on November 6th, we then reported the ‘retirement’ of Jean-Francois Caubet and the appointment of his successor, Renault Sport’s president Jean-Michel Jalinier. However, Jean-Francois’ departure was overshadowed by the same day appointment of Renault Sport protoge Cyril Abiteboul as Tony Fernandes replacement at Caterham.

Read more