The Downfall of the Original Renault F1 Team — and How Alpine is Repeating Their Mistakes
Among the many bombshells that have dropped in the Formula 1 community over the past few weeks was the news that Alpine — the team which the works Renault outfit rebranded to in 2021 — has undergone yet another major management restructuring, with several key figures leaving the team after a dire start to the 2024 season which has seen them produce the slowest car in the field.
I think it’s fair to say that even before their current struggles, the Renault group’s relationship with Formula 1 has always been a complex and often tumultuous one. This was perhaps never more true than for their initial stint as a works team in F1, which lasted from 1977 until 1985.
Considering this article is about the downfall of Renault though, I am going to begin with the year 1980 rather than at the very beginning, as I believe that this was the year that things started to go wrong for Renault in a way that would have a significant lasting impact.
Prior to 1980, Renault’s trajectory had been almost exclusively upwards. They had joined F1 in 1977 with the ambitious goal of making a turbocharged 1.5 litre engine competitive in a world which had largely settled on 3 litre normally aspirated units, and had shown remarkable progress in that endeavour initially.
While the car had started out as the butt of jokes in the paddock due to its hideous unreliability, Renault worked quietly and consistently until by 1979 they had a car which was competitive enough to claim a memorable home grand prix victory for the team in the hands of engineer-driver Jean-Pierre Jabouille.
However, this sudden arrival of results caused some within Renault to start dreaming big, which is where significant problems began to arise.
Talk began being thrown around by some senior figures within the team about winning the world championship in 1980, which seemed rather optimistic given the team had just one win to their name, and still had significant reliability problems which had yet to be sorted out.
For those of us hearing this today, this kind of talk seems eerily similar to the modern Renault and Alpine teams’ “100 race plans” to become world champion themselves, which have become the subject of ridicule due to the team’s continual failures to live up to their own hype.
Nevertheless, the start of the 1980 season did nothing to dispel this bubble of optimism within Renault. Of the opening three rounds of the season, the team’s new RE20 chassis was on pole for two of them (courtesy of Jabouille), and also won two of them (courtesy of teammate Arnoux). A Renault car therefore found itself in the lead of the championship for the first time, and talk of winning the title only got louder.
From there though, things rapidly fell apart. The unreliability which had blighted Renault’s turbo project since its inception again reared its head, with retirements and other issues coming with a staggering regularity.
This was particularly true of Renault’s long-time campaigner Jabouille, who by round 9 of the 14-race season had just one classified finish to his name, with even that being 9 laps down. It is perhaps unsurprising therefore that despite the enormous amount of work he’d put in on both the driving and engineering side to help make the Renault competitive, Jabouille’s patience with the project began to run out.
He finally broke his duck to score his first points of the year with a win at the tenth race in Austria, with an outstanding drive where he managed his soft Michelin tyres the whole race distance and held off championship leader Alan Jones’ Willliams all the way to the chequered flag. Even this could not sway Jabouille though, and just over a month later he announced that he was to leave the team to drive for rival French outfit Ligier in 1981.
This was the first major blow to the Renault F1 project. For one it showed that some people were beginning to lose confidence in the team’s plans, despite its upwards trajectory to that point. More importantly though, it also deprived Renault of a driver with a truly unique skillset at the time, and of a huge driving force behind their climb up the field thanks to his combination of engineering expertise and driving ability.
Despite the departure of their original driver, and their failure to live up to the lofty ambitions of winning the championship, Renault were undaunted going forward after 1980, and somewhat justifiably so. Even without the title, they had notched up three more wins for their trophy cabinet, and it seemed that they had reason to be even more confident for next season.
Controversial rules were set to come into place for the 1981 season in order to limit ground effect aerodynamics, which Renault stood to benefit from. While their cars did utilise ground effect, they were less dependent on it than many of the rival British teams who were still almost all using the same Cosworth DFV engine. The power advantage conferred by Renault’s 500+ horsepower V6 turbo therefore seemed like it could be the difference-maker in the upcoming season with aerodynamic development assumed to be taking a backseat to raw power.
Renault had also made a major coup on the driver front for 1981 by securing the signature of the extremely promising young Frenchman Alain Prost to replace the outgoing Jabouille. Prost had spent his rookie 1980 season stuck in a poor McLaren car, but had still managed to impress just about everyone by scoring points on debut and having the measure of his more experienced and highly-rated teammate John Watson for much of the year.
By signing Prost, Renault’s all-French philosophy was also maintained, which was still considered important for a partially government-owned team like Renault, but more importantly it also meant that the team could be confident in the quality of their drivers as well as the provenance, with Arnoux as the intended team leader and Prost as his wingman.
As it happened though, things in 1981 didn’t really go to plan…
That’s not to say that Renault’s performance was poor. In fact, it was probably their best season yet, and saw one of their cars legitimately involved in the championship battle for the first time.
This was in spite of the fact that Renault, at least initially, proved to be one of only a small group of teams who didn’t make use of a loophole to get around the controversial ground effect ban. Several other teams, led initially by Brabham, used hydraulic suspension which would let a driver clear the ground clearance check which was mandated by the new rules and was performed in the pit lane, while still having full ground effect out on track.
Despite this, it was a Renault which looked to be the quickest car in the second half of the season. That car proved to be the one of Prost though, who largely shaded his more senior teammate, despite the fact that Arnoux was the intended team leader. Arnoux often had the advantage in qualifying with four poles to Prost’s two, but he was unable to clinch any wins in 1981, while Prost secured three once the team’s new RE30 chassis and hydraulic suspension system had been introduced.
Prost would finish fifth in the standings in 1981, but that belies just how close the title fight that year was. Just seven more points would have seen him take the championship, and those points could have easily come at several races where either incidents or reliability took him out of contention. At the penultimate round in Canada alone he lost a likely podium or even win after a clumsy collision with the lapped Lotus of Nigel Mansell.
This reversal of the intended order of things gave Renault another headache to worry about going forward though. Already in 1981 there were signs of tension in the relationship between Prost and Arnoux, with the latter being less than helpful to his junior teammate at that year’s German grand prix as he was being lapped by Prost and the closely pursuing Alan Jones. With both drivers staying on for 1982, Renault would have to manage the situation carefully to avoid a full-on conflict breaking out.
There was also another development in 1981 which should have worried Renault. For the first time they were not alone in running turbocharged engines, as Ferrari and the small British Toleman team both fielded cars utilising the technology, while Brabham showed off their own turbo car with a BMW 4-cylinder engine in practice sessions.
Even more worryingly, Ferrari found some success with their engine almost immediately. Where Renault had taken 2 years to turn their engine into a winner, Ferrari managed two victories with their turbocharged engine in its debut season. Renault needed to keep up a rapid pace of development if they were to have any hope of reaping the benefits of the trend that they started.
Despite this, Renault opted for continuity in 1982, with an update of the 1981 RE30 chassis being used, and the same driver line-up being retained as mentioned previously. 1982 also saw the return of full ground effect after the previous season’s unpopular rule changes were reverted.
Despite the renewed importance of aerodynamics, Renault if anything looked quicker than ever. A double podium came in the opening race of the season, with Prost on the top step. This was followed by another win for Prost in the second race of the season, though it came in contentious circumstances after the disqualification of two cars which finished ahead of him on the road.
From there though, as had been seen before, it all fell apart. Firstly, the reliability issues seen in previous seasons back as bad as ever, despite the decision to keep using the same core chassis as the previous season in hopes of being able to iron out the bugs.
According to later testimony from Prost, a major part of this unreliability was caused by a single shoddily made component, but one which Renault could not make use of a different supplier for due to the Renault group being owned in large part by the French government.
Performance wise, the Renault was the quickest it had ever been relative to the rest of the field, with Prost and Arnoux combining to take 10 of the available 16 pole positions that year. This was irrelevant though when both cars could scarcely reach the end of the race.
To make matters worse, the breakdown in the relationship between the team’s drivers which had been hinted at in 1981 did indeed occur. The main flashpoint was the French Grand Prix, where for once both cars ran reliably, and streaked away from the rest of the field. By that point Arnoux was well out of the championship fight, having just one points finish all year, and Prost therefore expected that his teammate would make way for him to maximise Renault’s championship chances.
Arnoux thought otherwise though, and refused to concede victory, leading the livid Prost home for a dominant 1–2 finish, and thereby denying his countryman valuable points in the world championship fight.
Considering the fact that Prost had looked significantly the quicker of the two Renault drivers in 1981, the pace Arnoux had shown in 1982 was a creditable bounce-back, but the friction generated within the team was palpable.
It was of little surprise to outsiders when Arnoux announced that he was to leave the team after 1982 in favour of Ferrari, who he swiftly elated by winning his second grand prix of the year on Italian soil just after he was announced as the Scuderia’s next driver.
By the time this announcement came about, Arnoux’s relationship with Renault was so strained that his own mechanics refused to talk to him, and he instead spent his time in the Ferrari garage rather than with the team he was currently driving for.
In the end, despite taking two wins apiece in a season where nobody was able to better that tally, neither Renault driver was able to take the title. Renault had what was by just about every measure the quickest car of the season, but it was squandered with operational laxity, petty squabbles between teammates, and pressure from above which restricted the team’s ability to solve problems.
The latter stages of the season also came with an indication that the Renault team’s failures to deliver a championship were being looked on dimly by higher-ups in the company. This came in the form of a deal with Lotus, who it was announced would be given access to Renault’s turbocharged engines from 1983 onwards.
Many pundits were quick to note that this deal suggested a lack of confidence from upper management in the works team’s ability to put together a winning package of engine, chassis, drivers, and organisation, and almost seemed to imply that Renault were beginning to hedge their bets by throwing their weight behind a different team in their quest for championship glory — if only as an engine manufacturer rather than a full works team.
Once again though, Renault had reason to be confident going into 1983. The main reason for this was that the season saw the biggest aerodynamic rule change in decades, as ground effect was banned once and for all with a mandate that all cars have totally flat floors. This meant that cars would have to derive all of their downforce from their wings, which in turn made the benefit of a more powerful engine even greater as it could help overcome the drag penalty that such large front and rear wings would generate.
Renault also had a revised driver line-up for 1983 after Arnoux’s departure, and to their credit their new approach showed that they had at least learned from the turmoil of the previous seasons.
The team dropped their all-French policy for the first time, and signed Eddie Cheever from Ligier to be a clear number 2 to Prost. Cheever was by no means a bad driver, as he would prove during the season, but it was clear that Prost was the driver whom Renault had pinned their hopes on for their championship campaign. The change in policy made sense from the perspective of a team looking to win the title, but it also gave off an aura of desperation that the team were suddenly willing to abandon what had been a defining feature of their project.
The team also sought to get onto the bleeding edge of technology when it came to the chassis too, with a new RE40 chassis being constructed out of carbon fibre after the revolutionary material had been introduced to the world of Formula 1 chassis construction by John Barnard and McLaren two seasons earlier.
1983 therefore represented something of a reset for Renault after the disappointment of the previous year, with sweeping changes to its driver line-up and car design. It was to be all or nothing.
As the season went on, it finally looked like Renault had found the right formula. The car was reasonably reliable (at least by early F1 turbo standards) for the first time, and Prost and Cheever had a far more harmonious relationship than had been enjoyed the previous season with Arnoux.
The Frenchman won in fine style from pole at his home grand prix, and then followed it up with three more wins on high-speed circuits in Spa, Silverstone and the Österreichring. After the Austrian race, Prost had a comfortable 14-point lead from his nearest rival Nelson Piquet with just four races to go.
It was at the following race in the Netherlands that things all started to come apart for Prost and Renault though. After looking totally assured for most of the season, Prost made a rare error while duelling with his title rival on the Zandvoort circuit, crashing into Piquet during what should have been a routine overtaking manoeuvre. While Piquet retired too, what could have been another extension of the gap over his rival turned into a frustrating non-score for Prost.
That frustration only grew when it became apparent that Piquet’s Brabham team had found something which transformed their performance. Piquet won in absolutely dominant fashion at Monza, while Prost again retired with a reliability problem after looking off-song all race long.
Another win for Piquet came at Brands Hatch, where Prost could do little but follow him home in second in order to minimise the damage. Even so, the result was that Prost had seen his fourteen-point lead cut down to just two in the span of three races, and that he went into the final race having to worry about not just Piquet, but also his former teammate Arnoux who had come from nowhere to have an outside chance of the title in his Ferrari.
Panic seemed to set in at Renault as a result of this situation, and Brabham actively seized upon the state of disarray to pinch the title from under the French team’s nose. For the final race at Kyalami, Brabham started Piquet’s car on an absolutely minimal fuel load, taking advantage of refuelling being allowed and hoping to bait Prost and Renault into pushing their engine too hard in order to keep up.
Just as Brabham had hoped, Piquet was able to use his light fuel load to streak into an early lead, which seemed to break Prost’s spirit, as he knew that if Piquet won then even second would not be enough to win the title.
The gamesmanship from Brabham then dealt the killing blow, as on lap 35 Prost’s turbocharger failed, which signalled to Piquet that all he needed to do was bring the car home in fourth position or higher to snatch the title. He duly eased off, allowing his teammate Patrese and the Alfa Romeo of Andrea de Cesaris through, but sealed third position and the title by two points. Even the constructor’s title didn’t go Renault’s way, as their repeated late season DNFs allowed Ferrari to wrest that away from them as well.
Prost was crestfallen, but the reaction from Renault was one of pure anger. They blamed Prost for the defeat despite the fact that he had won the most races of anyone in 1983, and summarily sacked their number 1 driver shortly after the conclusion of the season.
The breakdown in relationship between Prost and Renault was such that Prost had to move homes from France to Switzerland after disgruntled Renault employees broke into his house and burned one of his road cars.
Prost meanwhile laid the blame for the defeat squarely at Renault’s feet, citing the lack of reliability at a critical time in the season and the loss of competitiveness relative to their rivals Ferrari and Brabham late in the year which he felt had spoiled what should have easily been his title.
It would later transpire that Brabham’s improved performance at the end of the season came as a result of special fuel which contained the volatile compound toluene, and which was also reported to exceed the maximum allowed octane rating for F1 petrol, with this combination of traits conferring both improved reliability and greater power for the Brabham cars. Renault tried to have the results of the season overturned, but their protests fell on deaf ears (especially with Brabham owner Bernie Ecclestone growing increasingly powerful in the sport) and the championship remained out of their grasp.
Where 1983 had been a reset, 1984 would represent the start a worrying pattern of repeated high-profile personnel shakeups that once again bear a striking resemblance to that seen in the Alpine team of today.
With Prost gone to McLaren, an all-new driver line-up was sought to give the team yet another reboot, with Cheever also being dropped. After the clear number 1 and number 2 arrangement of 1983, Renault reverted to a line-up consisting of two more equal drivers like it had used before, with Ferrari refugee Patrick Tambay and up-and-coming Briton Derek Warwick being signed.
Both drivers were capable, but another policy change when it came to drivers seemed indicative of the lack of a clear direction to Renault’s project by 1984.
The team could still come up with neat ideas though, as was seen by their reaction to the new fuel rules for 1984 which banned refuelling and imposed a fuel tank capacity limit to try to curb extremely thirsty turbocharged engines.
Renault responded by devising an elaborate system to freeze their fuel as it was pumped into the tank, allowing them to pack more of it in due to the greater density of cold liquids.
As it happened though, the fuel freezing system almost acted as a metaphor for the entire Renault F1 effort. It was innovative, ingenious, and clearly had no expense spared on it, but it was ultimately almost worthless in the face of other teams who simply managed to execute the fundamentals better rather than fretting over fancy gimmicks.
In 1984 it was to be McLaren who would embarrass Renault, as they laughed in the face of the Regie’s fuel freezing system by simply having a more efficient engine in the first place thanks to the work of Hans Mezger and Porsche.
Even more concerningly, Renault were outscored in 1984 by their own customer team Lotus, who had clearly put together a superior chassis, and who themselves became frustrated by a return of reliability issues from the French concern’s engines — rather recalling the situation of the modern Renault team and Red Bull from 2016–18.
For the first time since 1978 neither the Renault team, nor the Renault engine won a race. With Prost again winning the most races of the year (albeit again narrowly missing the title), Renault’s blaming of him for the catastrophic ending of 1983 looked particularly misguided given the fallow state of their trophy cabinet since his departure.
In the increasingly predictable post-season shakeup for Renault, it was the team management that saw departures after 1984. However, in a change of pace this time the reason for the departures was not due to sackings as the omnipotent, invisible upper management looked for a scapegoat, but rather that several long-time figures in Renault’s race team simply ran out of patience.
In a move that mirrored of the departure of Jean-Pierre Jabouille some four years earlier, both team manager Gerard Larousse and car designer Michel Tetu, who had been with Renault long term (since the very inception of the team in the case of Larousse) upped sticks and left for Ligier — seemingly the favourite destination of ex-Renault employees. New faces were drafted in to right the ship, but it was telling that figures who were absolutely pivotal to the founding and initial climb up the order of the Renault team had now lost all faith in the project.
It didn’t take long in 1985 for everyone to realise that Renault were living on borrowed time, despite the management shakeup. The car was even slower relative to the field than in 1984, and the whole organisation had the vibe of having nothing left in the tank.
Few were surprised when Renault announced in November that they would not be contesting the 1986 season as a constructor, though they would continue their supply of engines to Lotus after they had massively outperformed the works team again in 1985, won three races, and now looked the best hope for Renault to get their name associated with a world championship victory.
It is clear from looking at Renault’s downturn that many of the issues which afflicted them and kept them from the success that they so desperately sought are still, regrettably, shared by the modern team which is in many ways its descendant. When Renault re-entered Formula 1 in 2016, they did so with a remarkably similar attitude to the one possessed by the old team, with many in the team seemingly holding a belief that it was only a matter of time until success came their way, regardless of how well they adapted to changing times.
It is also the case for both Alpine and the original Renault team that when this success eluded them, they seemingly have immense political pressure from unseen sources high up in the company, who are keen to seek out scapegoats to blame for their problems while simultaneously restricting the ability of those within the team to solve problems that might arise.
Both the modern and original Renault/Alpine teams made (and indeed are still making in the latter case) high-profile changes to both driver lineups and management, yet all this seems to do is put a new group of people in the firing line when they fail to turn around a team that clearly has flaws beyond just personnel.
If there’s one key area that the original Renault team and its modern day descendent differ, it would probably be in their attitude towards the often-unavoidable reality of F1 — that money can often make problems disappear.
While this certainly isn’t always true (as proven by another notorious high-profile manufacturer flop who certainly weren’t shy about spending), I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the original Renault team had markedly more success than the modern one when considering the fact that it was for a long time absolutely flush with cash, while today’s team is notoriously tight-fisted by comparison.
There is no doubt that the Renault marque is capable of F1 glory if they apply themselves, as they deftly proved in 2005 and 6 when their second attempt at an F1 works team yielded two driver’s championships for Fernando Alonso and two constructor’s crowns to go along with them. In that case though the team was one which was already built up, had previous winning form as Benetton, and therefore had a strong foundation in place which was largely left alone.
Alpine would be wise to look towards that formula for guidance if they wish stop repeating the mistakes of their first tenure in Formula 1.
