IMPROVED TEAM OF THE YEAR

This is a well-deserved award for a team which showed tangible progress in 2020, despite its final constructors’ championship position (fifth) being identical to its 2019 achievement.

The reality of 2020 is that Renault made huge strides forward, scoring almost 100 points more than the previous season, fighting for third place in the standings until the final race, and

beating Ferrari comfortably. And there were those breakthrough podiums, thanks to Daniel Ricciardo’s third placed finishes at the Nürburgring and Imola, and Esteban Ocon finishing second in the Sakhir GP.

But perhaps more important than these results was the improved pace of the car. Enstone used the pandemic-enforced delay to the season to improve the RS20 between pre-season testing and the first race, and Ricciardo said he could immediately feel the improvement in rear grip. Tweaks to the set-up at Silverstone put the car in what Ricciardo called the “sweet spot” and he became a consistent topsix threat in qualifying as the season progressed.

According to team boss Cyril Abiteboul, this progress was the result of changes made during 2019, when aerodynamic development of the RS19 stalled. Since then, the technical team (now under Pat Fry’s leadership) has been performing strongly.

“There’s been lots of change – but maybe more so in 2019,” Abiteboul explained. “It’s just that now we’re seeing the effects. Another thing that’s had an impact is that during the hiatus we were able to mature a technical package that had been scheduled for June or July, so from race one the car was benefitting from the upgrade. We’ve got new people and a new dynamic within the aero department, and a new way of developing the car.”

“After the very unusual year we have just had, to receive this award recognising our progression is very satisfying. After last year’s disappointment, the changes we made to the team and the intense work over the winter, we could feel that we had made progress. The time gap to pole position was reduced by about 30% compared with 2019. While it means we need to reach another 70%, it gives us a target and we will now concentrate our attention on this.”

Cyril Abiteboul, Renault team principal and managing director