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Former Renault team boss Flavio Briatore has urged the French carmaker to look carefully at its contracted driver lineup for 2016. Amid Lotus' struggle for survival late this season, it re-signed the lucratively PDVSA-backed Pastor Maldonado and announced that Friday driver Jolyon Palmer will make his race debut for the Enstone team next year.
But that was before Renault announced that it is definitely re-acquiring its former works team. After surviving a court date over unpaid tax this week that could have seen Lotus put into administration, Lotus CEO Matthew Carter said he believes Renault will honour the contracts with Maldonado and Palmer.
But Renault CEO Carlos Ghosn had declared: "We will wait a few weeks. I refer to a meeting in January 2016, when we will explain the organisation, goals, strategy and we will also talk about drivers and partners," he told Le Figaro newspaper.
Former team boss Briatore insists Renault must revisit the issue of drivers. "It's true that Renault must rebuild everything," he told La Gazzetta dello Sport, "including the technical team. Enstone lost some great engineers, and Viry also. It will be not easy. If you want to win, you must change the drivers as well."
Counting himself out of the running, however, was 2015 Lotus driver Romain Grosjean, even though his French nationality would appear to make him ideal. Grosjean, however, has signed up with the new Ferrari-linked team Haas for 2016, declaring: "At Renault they need at least three years to get back to the top and I'm almost 30. Let's say I have ahead of me a maximum of five or six seasons left in F1. I can't wait any longer and this option (Haas) could open other opportunities for me." (GMM)
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Replies (3)
Login to replyJames Raven
Posts: 2,443
Well, who would you replace them with? Not many (better) options in my opinion.
As far as Grosjean goes, Haas will at least need 3 years to get to a winning level. Renault, being a factory team, would be a much better option. But now he has a seat and it might work out for him.
khasmir
Posts: 893
I would replace Maldonado with Magnussen ;)
Palmer deserves his chance, he won GP2 last year and has the sponsors.
For Grosjean it could also mean a to have a foot in the door of Ferrari in the future. Haas won't be winning any championships soon but they could be competitive quite quickly.
James Raven
Posts: 2,443
For Grosjean I think you are right he has his hopes on that. But I do not think he is that good.
Renault will need to work hard on the (new) car and probably can do with a more experienced driver. And there are still the millions Maldonado brought in.
There is no really good experienced driver available right now.