A tricky year that led to a world title
It’s rare for Formula 1 teams to go from back-row fodder to podium challengers in one season, but that’s what Benetton did in 2001 as it laid the foundations for title-winning success as Renault
When Renault returned to Formula 1 as a fully fledged factory team in 2016, it boldly announced its aspirations of becoming a winning force again within five years. There’s nothing wrong with showing ambition, but its hopelessly misguided comments made a rod for the team’s back and revealed an ignorance of the work involved in lifting the Enstone operation up the grid after years of underinvestment by previous owner Genii Capital.
Now in its latest identity as Alpine, the team remains firmly ensconced in the midfield fight and, despite qualifying heroics from Esteban Ocon in Portugal and Spain, appears unlikely to finish higher than fifth once again. In the final year of the current regulations, it would be prudent to start looking at its design for 2022 in the not-too-distant future. But before writing off the A521 altogether, Renault CEO Luca de Meo and co should take inspiration from another former‘team Enstone’guise, Benetton, whose transformation from backmarker to on-merit podium finisher in 2001 is one of the more remarkable of modern times.
Of course, it’s easier to find gains when the only way is up. Studying the supertimes, based on an average of each team’s ultimate pace at each grand prix, Benetton was the ninth-quickest team of 2001. It was slower even than Prost, which went bust at season’s end, and 2.915% off the pace of frontrunner Ferrari. But it’s not every F1 team that is able to go from paddock laughing stock – then-technical director Mike Gascoyne refers to the Renault-powered B201 as a“dog”– to cracking the top 10 in qualifying with both cars by the end of the season.
Three podiums from Giancarlo Fisichella – including a second place in Brazil after David Coulthard’s Mclaren was disqualified – had helped the team to finish fourth in the constructors’standings in 2000, pipping BAR on countback. It represented a return to form for the team after a terrible 1999 campaign in which it had slipped to sixth in the constructors’points – its worst performance since 1986 (during
which it still won a race) – due to a poor correlation with the windtunnel that resulted in key aero deficiencies and supposed innovations proving dead ends (Benetton’s Front Torque Transfer system and twin-clutch gearbox were the chief culprits).
Renault had completed a deal with the Benetton family to buy the team in March 2000, and the return of Flavio Briatore as managing director coincided with an influx of investment that brought ex-jordan technical director Gascoyne into the fold, with Jordan chief designer Mark Smith and deputy technical director Bob Bell following in 2001. “One thing about Flavio, he was very supportive of building up a team to win a world championship,”says Gascoyne,“so people I wanted he was very supportive of getting.”
For Pat Symonds, who had taken over as technical director following the departure of Ross Brawn in 1996 and steered the team through a few lean years, a bright future appeared around the corner.“in the late 1990s, I was technical director and I had a lot on my plate,”he recalls. “We had a tiny budget and an incredibly onerous engine supply contract with Mecachrome which was killing us.
“People talk about engine costs these days, but believe me they were a lot worse then as a percentage of your total budget. It bears no resemblance. We were already bleeding paying those engine bills, and then at the end of the year we’d get another bill because we’ve used more engines in testing than the contract said, so we were really struggling in that respect.
“Number one on my job list every single day was to prepare the team for sale, effectively. I knew we were moving into an era where you had to be aligned with a manufacturer, so I had to make the team attractive to a manufacturer by appearing to be a big team running on a small team budget. That was really tough, but we achieved the objective and Renault had faith that it was a good thing to get into.
“Suddenly there was a lot more money coming in, so the team was able to grow up very rapidly. Our 2000-01 budget compared to our 1998-99 budget was beyond belief and, of course, by 2001 we weren’t really paying for engines either.”
But there was still plenty of work to do, not least debugging the windtunnel and improving the model quality, before the team could begin to have designs on recapturing its glory days of 1994-95. “When I went to Jordan, they were failing because of their aerodynamic programme, and when I went to Benetton it was exactly the same,”says Gascoyne.“they had a much better windtunnel, much bigger facilities, loads more people, but having a good windtunnel doesn’t always
“HAVING A GOOD WINDTUNNEL DOESN’T ALWAYS MEAN THAT YOU PUT QUICK RACING CARS IN IT”