RENAULT WELCOMES MCLAREN CHALLENGE
Engine deal brings“good pressure” for works team
Renault Formula 1 advisor Alain Prost insists the firm has no regrets in striking a deal to supply Mclaren from next season, despite the move being likely to tighten up competition for its own works team.
Renault finished sixth in the Constructors’ Championship this year after a tight battle with Toro Rosso, Williams and Haas. Mclaren was ninth after another desperate campaign with Honda, which eventually led to the Woking team switching to the French supplier from next season.
While some have questioned why Renault would want to supply what will likely now be a powerful rival team, Prost insisted it was within the spirit of competition to do so.
Prost toldmn’s sister title Autosport: “It will make pressure for us, because we will have one more competitor in our field. But we know that and we hope that it’s going to be positive pressure, and it’s a fact that we have to beat everybody anyway.
“If you make a resume of this season for us, sixth position is not too bad. At the end of the second part of the season we were very close to being most of the time the fourth team in terms of performance.
“We had reliability problems, and when you have reliability problems, you have to go down in performance. It’s not an excuse, but what we showed in Abu Dhabi [when Nico Hulkenberg finished sixth] was when we put everything together, with the pressure we had, we can manage to do it [fight further up the order].
“The gap in front is still big, but we are going to improve the performance of the engine, but it’s always a risk. It’s always a challenge for us.”
Mclaren’s Eric Boullier added: “Mclaren and Renault are now in the ‘get to know each other better’ phase. We are building relationships, and we want to make sure this honeymoon period lasts a lot longer than the last one!
“I think it would be wrong to draft any expectations now [for 2018]. I am a fan of the motto ‘over-deliver but under-promise’, so there’s no promises of where we’ll be just yet.”
Prost added that, even for a manufacturer team like Renault, the $6.5 million hike in prize money for finishing sixth over seventh in the Constructors’ was a big boost.
“The money is important,” he said. “And also the fact we got it in the last race is very important – it gives the motivation to the people during the winter. They feel a little less pressure and are happier to work.”