Nico Hulkenberg has already been told that he won’t be back with Renault F1 in 2020.
After watching his team finish fourth in the Formula 1 Constructors’ Championship in 2018 and after signing former Red Bull Racing driver Daniel Ricciardo this past offseason, Renault F1 team managing director Cyril Abiteboul can be excused for being more than a little disappointed in 2019.
Renault enters the U.S. Grand Prix at Circuit of the America’s in Austin, Texas, fifth in this year’s constructors’ race standings. More to the point, the team that has supplanted Renault as “best of the rest” behind the sport’s big three of Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull is McLaren – a customer team using Renault power plants.
“We failed to develop the car as much as needed,” Abiteboul told Autoweek. “We knew it would be difficult to make it to the top three, but we weren’t expecting to be P5 either. McLaren has simply done a better job.
“They’ve done a better job than us on the chassis side. We are using the same equipment. There is absolutely nothing different between what we are using and what they are using.”
Cyril Abitboul is the managing director for the Renault F1 team.
The biggest change, and one of the biggest compromises, may be the team budget cap which is set to be locked in at $175 million. Abiteboul said that in addition to the challenges of the cap in 2021 will be keeping up with the arms race sure to be set off next year as teams pour as much money they can into the development of the 2021 cars ahead of the cap.
“We would have liked it to be lower,” he said. “We are operating at a level below that, about $150 million. We were sort of targeting or expecting 150 instead of $175 million. We have been building our team in accordance with where we were anticipating that level to be. Now. we need to ask ourselves whether we need to increase our budget to reflect that ($175 million).
“The 2021 season is an opportunity, but I do know that teams will be spending like hell next year — in the year before the budget cap — and we have our limitations.”
Another compromise appears to be in a new look to the end-of-the-season prize money for teams paid out through the Constructor’s Championship. Those figures have not been made public, but Abiteboul believes it will be more equitable than the current top-heavy system.
The acquisition of Daniel Ricciardo hasn’t worked out as well as Renault had hoped it would this season. He’s yet to reach the podium.
“We’re confident that the revenue share will be less top heavy,” he said. “Teams finishing from four through six are going to get a bit more, and that’s what we need. And that’s great. That’s what we need. It’s like society. If you are in middle class and you want to join the upper class, we need some help from them to do that.”
Ultimately, Abiteboul is hopeful that the grid will tighten up by 2021.
“I don’t think the sport is bad.,” he said. “We have two tiers, but each tier, each category is extremely exciting. We have three teams fighting between Merceces, and Ferrari and sometimes Red Bull, and that is great racing.
“We have a midfield that is extremely tight and that’s great racing – sometimes a it’s a bit dirty racing — but it’s great racing. The only thing we would want rather than to have two tiers would be to have one tier, and that’s not going to happen until 2021 at the earliest.”
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