Formula One will recover in the 2016 World Championship, which starts in March, Renault, a French team that this Wednesday presented its pilots on the outskirts of Paris – the English rookie Jolyon Palmer and the Danish Kevin Magnussen – and who achieved their greatest successes thanks to to the Spanish Fernando Alonso.
Alonso, 34, who will face the second campaign in (his return to) McLaren from March 20 in Australia, led the most glorious time of the French team during the first years of the century, in which he conquered his two world titles and achieved for more than half of his 32 victories in Formula One.
Renault began competing in F1 in 1977, in a World Cup in which it contested five races with Frenchman Jean-Pierre Jabouille as the sole driver, using the first turbo engine in history in an unstable single-seater named RS01, heavy, rough looking and that gave off steam from overheating. When he appeared in Silverstone (England) he was nicknamed “the yellow teapot” in a humorous way and did not finish any of those races.
But that “kettle” evolved and the Frenchman achieved his first triumph in 1979 – the first for a car with a turbocharged engine – at the French Grand Prix, in Dijon, in which his partner and compatriot René Arnoux also took the podium, after starring in a historic duel in the last laps with the ill-fated Canadian Gilles Villeneuve (Ferrari), second in that unforgettable race.
At the beginning of the 80s the team grew up with another Frenchman, Alain Prost – present at this Thursday’s presentation, as was his compatriot Jean Todt, president of the FIA - before focusing from 1986 on supplying engines and achieve, in his second journey as a team, his greatest successes thanks to Alonso.
Prost -current reference of the brand- came to Renault in 1981, his second F1 campaign. He achieved two wins that year and seven the next two: the first nine of his 51 in the premier class.
The last seven, with the Williams team, but with an engine of the French brand, were obtained by Prost in 1993, when he finished off his brilliant career with a fourth world title.
Renault – since then in F1 as a supplier of propellants or as a team – returned as a motorcyclist to Formula One in 1989 and in 1992 he won both World Cups with Williams and the Englishman Nigel Mansell.
And, apart from Prost’s, Renault celebrated more titles as a ‘motorcyclist’: the second of seven by German Michael Schumacher, with Benetton, in 1995; those of the Englishman Damon Hill and the Canadian Jacques Villeneuve, the following two years, with Williams; and the entire triumphant journey of German Sebastian Vettel (2010-13) with Red Bull.
However, Alonso spearheaded the most glorious time in the entire history of Renault as a team in its second journey in F1, which began in 2002 with the purchase of Benetton, in which years before the Italian Flavio Briatore had triumphed as director, ‘discoverer’ of the ‘stratospheric’ Schumacher, who had celebrated his first two titles with the ‘Colores Unidos’ team.
Under the direction of the eccentric and glamorous Briatore, Renault – with factories in Enstone (England, where the chassis was manufactured) and Viry (France, focused on the engine) – lived its ‘Golden Age’ as a team led by Alonso, who in 2001 had fired in Minardi and, after spending a year as a tester, in 2003 he began to break almost all records for precocity.
After signing the pole position and the youngest podium in Malaysia at the time, the brilliant Asturian rider set the youngest fastest lap in Canada and became, shortly after his 22nd birthday, the youngest in history – and he is still the only Spaniard to win a Grand Prix: that of Hungary, outside Budapest.
After spending 2004 without victories, Fernando celebrated seven during 2005, proclaiming himself at that time the youngest world champion of all time, breaking the record held since 1972 by another two-time champion, the Brazilian Emerson Fittipaldi.
Alonso repeated the title and seven wins for Renault the following year. And after the then English debutant Lewis Hamilton – meanwhile triple championship winner – crossed his path, in 2007 and at McLaren, the double Asturian world champion returned to the French team, in lower hours, to achieve another two victories on first of his last two years (2008) in the team.
In his two successful seasons, in which Renault celebrated drivers and constructors’ titles, Fernando achieved more victories (14) than in his five years as Ferrari captain (11).
In total, Alonso contested 105 races as a Renault driver, for which he achieved his two World Cups and 17 of his 32 victories in the premier class of motorsport, also contributing sixteen ‘poles’ and ten fastest laps.
And since the beginning of the new millennium, only Italians Giancarlo Fisichella – with whom the Asturian star celebrated the two ‘doublets’ – and Jarno Trulli contributed victories to the French team.
In 52 races with Renault, ‘Fisico’ achieved two victories, eight podiums, two ‘pole positions’ and one fastest lap; Jarno won once in his 48 Grands Prix with the French team, for which he added three podiums and two pole positions.
The Polish Robert Kubica climbed three times to the ‘drawer’ in 2010 – he was second in Australia and third in Monaco and Belgium-. And in 2011, already like Lotus-Renault, the last two podiums for the French team to date came: the two third places that were achieved by the Russian Vitaly Petrov, in Australia, and the German Nick Heidfeld, in Malaysia.
Between 2012 and 2015, the team, owned by Genii Capital, competed as Lotus, a space that Renault is recovering this year with the pair made up of Palmer and Magnussen, who will accelerate again for the diamond brand on the main circuits of the world. EFE
F1 recovers Renault, the team that shone thanks to Fernando Alonso
