Why Renault won’t get better under Cyril Abiteboul.
Yesterday it was announced by Zak Brown that Daniel Ricciardo would be joining the McLaren F1 team, leaving Renault after only one real season driving for the French outfit. For Renault, this is an embarrassment on multiple levels — the first of which being the fact their game plan was to keep Ricciardo in the team for the regulation change; unfortunately postponed until 2022.
Of course, the unavoidable postponement of the aerodynamic regulation change will have played a part in Daniel’s decision. You can’t blame Abiteboul for that, the fallouts and consequences of the COVID-19 epidemic will be affecting every team in the championship. Time isn’t against Ricciardo per se, but at the ripe age of 30, he doesn’t have years to waste in an era where Ferrari and Red Bull have put all their chips on the table with generational young talents Charles Leclerc and Max Verstappen.
Secondly, not only did Renault lose a world-class driver to a rival team, Renault lost Ricciardo to a customer team that finished above them in the Constructors’ Championship last year. For a works team, finishing below your customer isn’t a great look, especially after soundly beating them three years in a row. Renault’s engine hasn’t quite been up to par since the regulation change in 2014, which left Red Bull lagging behind the emergent Mercedes after a dominant four years led by Sebastian Vettel. The engine has seen definite improvement in recent years, which saw Daniel Ricciardo claim a win in a Renault-powered Red Bull at Monaco in 2018, but this is no excuse for Renault to be beaten by a customer team in their fourth year as a works team.
Perhaps most crucially, the worst sign of Renault needing a refresh, is that not only did their driver lose faith in them — the paddock has too. At the start of the 2018 season, Renault engines powered three customer teams (Red Bull, Toro Rosso and McLaren) but after the Red Bull family left them for Honda in 2019, and McLaren confirmed a switch to the Mercedes power unit for 2021 will go ahead despite the regulation postponement. As things stand, Renault will be the only works team in Formula One not to have a customer in 2021.
Cyril Abiteboul may have orchestrated the rise of Renault from the carcass of the Enstone Lotus team to being the ‘best of the rest’ in 2018, but everyone has an expiration date and Cyril may have faced his. In fact, I think his Renault resume looks far better than it is. In 2017, Renault were soundly beaten by Force India and Williams, but in 2018 finished 4th in the Constructors’ Championship. It’s worth looking at their driver line-up for that year — Nico Hulkenberg and Carlos Sainz Jr. Nico was a prodigious talent, and in his years with Force India proved that he can outdrive a machine to place it in grid positions it doesn’t always have a right to be in. Carlos is also an extremely talented driver, having come into his own so much in his sole year at McLaren that Ferrari have secured him to replace the outgoing Sebastian Vettel. So how much of this momentous year was down to Cyril and his leadership, and how much came down to the clear talent of the two drivers Renault secured for that season?
Abiteboul’s approach of aspiring and striving to be a top team in 2022, emulating Mercedes dominance since 2014, has not been working as of late, with the 2019 season delivering mixed to poor results for the team. McLaren under Zak Brown have switched from a seemingly ‘all or nothing’ mentality to a recognition of where they are and a realistic view of where they can be — something which has clearly helped them deliver their best season in half a decade.
The driver line-up for 2019 was incredible at Renault. Nico Hulkenberg and Daniel Ricciardo are as good a pair of drivers as any on the grid that year (excl. Mercedes and Ferrari) and the lack of ability for Cyril to capitalise on this and close the gap to Red Bull resulted in a loss of faith both from the drivers and the paddock alike. Abiteboul has seen Renault through some good times — but if they are to become a dominant force in a post-regulation championship, it looks like they need a new man for the job.
