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Why did the first Renault F1 team (70's and 80's) always finish at home? And so seldom 'out'?


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#1 Nemo1965

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Posted 01 January 2016 - 22:17

Because it is winter, and there is no F1-racing, I have been watching a lot of reviews and reading a lot of books about seasons of more than five years ago. And again something struck me as odd: the Renault F1-team (70's,80's) had excellent cars with dismal reliability. Renault had arguable the best car in 1979,1980,1981, absolutely the best in 1982... but unfortunately they seldom finished races.
 

Except...

in France. Where-ever the French Grand Prix was.

 

Dijon 1979? 1st and 3rd.

Paul Ricard 1980, 5th.

Dijon 1981: 1st and 4th.

Ricard 1982: 1st and 2nd.

Ricard 1983: 1st and 2nd.

Ricard 1984: 2nd and 4th.

Ricard 1985: 6th and 7th.

 

Now it is understandable that at home, the factory will put in some extra effort. Ferrari always cranked up their engines at Monza. But then you would get pole on Saturday and big clouds of blown engines on Sunday. But Renault managed in the French Grand Prix to crank up both the speed and the reliability. Reliability that usually was missing, and that cost them potentially a couple of championships.

 

Your thoughts, please.

 

 

 



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#2 Michael Ferner

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Posted 01 January 2016 - 23:02

1984 French GP was at Dijon, and from memory Cheever wasn't second but third in '83.

But yes, a remarkable record. Seems Jabouille's burnt clutch at the start of the 1980 race was the only retirement, apart from '78.

#3 ensign14

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Posted 01 January 2016 - 23:21

Ricard rewarded outright top speed.  Perhaps Renault, with the fastest chassis/engine combo, could dial it back a little for the sake of reliability?  I seem to recall Dijon was quite a flat-out one as well.  Almost won there at the Swiss GP in 1982.



#4 Nemo1965

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Posted 02 January 2016 - 08:08

Ricard rewarded outright top speed.  Perhaps Renault, with the fastest chassis/engine combo, could dial it back a little for the sake of reliability?  I seem to recall Dijon was quite a flat-out one as well.  Almost won there at the Swiss GP in 1982.

 

Good point. Prost was - again - leading the Swiss GP at Dijon... and suffered a broken skirt, as I recall. Thus 'giving' Keke Rosberg his first and only win of the 1982 season... and the world championship, ultimately.

 

About the top-speed and dialling it back: that is an interesting hypothesis. Though it goes against my grain of logical thought: the less down-force you put on a car, the engine has to run more in peak, high-end of the engine and gears. While with a lot of down-force, the engine has to work in the 'low' more, in the torque-department. Which, according to my limited knowledge, should stress the engine less. If you mean that at Ricard Renault could set the revs lower... yeah...

 

1984 French GP was at Dijon, and from memory Cheever wasn't second but third in '83.

But yes, a remarkable record. Seems Jabouille's burnt clutch at the start of the 1980 race was the only retirement, apart from '78.

 

You are right on both counts. Duh. Thought I could at least do this without Google!


Edited by Nemo1965, 02 January 2016 - 08:11.


#5 stuartbrs

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Posted 02 January 2016 - 09:32

Was the 82 Renault better than the Ferrari that year? I thought the Ferrari was the regarded as the best car that season.



#6 Nemo1965

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Posted 02 January 2016 - 14:11

Was the 82 Renault better than the Ferrari that year? I thought the Ferrari was the regarded as the best car that season.

 

The Ferrari was more reliable. But Prost and Arnoux led an incredible amount of miles that season. 258 laps in the lead for Prost alone, a quarter of the total. They had 10 pole-positions that year.



#7 Charlieman

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Posted 03 January 2016 - 14:34

A bunch of reasons...

 

Preparation #1: Renault would have tested on French tracks more often than British teams or Ferrari.

 

Preparation #2: Renault were motivated to win THE GP and may have compromised their efforts at preceding and successive races. The team had to put up a good show for the politicians and sponsors who paid for them.

 

Home team luck and driver inspiration.



#8 D-Type

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Posted 04 January 2016 - 15:56

And we can be sure that the French officials and scrutineers were totally unbiased and did nothing to favour Renault.    ;)



#9 PlatenGlass

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Posted 04 January 2016 - 23:30

I've often thought that this was odd. Look at the races lost in 1982. They could have won both championships easily if they'd had their French GP level of reliability throughout.

As for which was the best car that year - overall (speed and reliability) it was the Ferrari. They just needed a driver to last all season. But they still won the constructors' championship.

#10 Nemo1965

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Posted 05 January 2016 - 10:06

A bunch of reasons...

 

Preparation #1: Renault would have tested on French tracks more often than British teams or Ferrari.

 

Preparation #2: Renault were motivated to win THE GP and may have compromised their efforts at preceding and successive races. The team had to put up a good show for the politicians and sponsors who paid for them.

 

Home team luck and driver inspiration.

 

Well... that second reason would have driven drivers like Alain Prost and Jean-Pierre Jabouille crazy, no doubt. Just imagine... you know you lose the world title twice (or three times!) because the team compromises it success for political reasons...



#11 Charlieman

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Posted 07 January 2016 - 15:15

Well... that second reason would have driven drivers like Alain Prost and Jean-Pierre Jabouille crazy, no doubt. Just imagine... you know you lose the world title twice (or three times!) because the team compromises it success for political reasons...

When competing in the 1980s for the world championship, teams and drivers still had to make compromises. Did Elf and Total make the best fuels and oils? Did the team use the best wind tunnels? Was the French national team the right way to achieve success?

 

"Compromise" implies degrees of difference, partial success. Renault needed "hard" results in 1979 when they won their home race to convince people to fund their programme. Not the third place, but the win.



#12 arttidesco

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Posted 09 January 2016 - 15:37

My understanding is that Renault were not like other teams in their work practices, their employees only worked a restricted number of hours per week, rather than what ever was needed and I believe this may have contributed to them never winning the World Constructors Championship which has not always been won by the fastest car, but often won by the most reliable, therefore IMHO, Ferrari easily had the best cars in 1982 and 1983.



#13 Charlieman

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Posted 10 January 2016 - 13:14

According to the Jabby Crombac biography of Colin Chapman, Renault aspired to be in a position to win a world championship in 1981, 82 or 83. After that the company would operate only as an engine supplier to teams like Lotus. There is a rational argument that Renault needed a customer team to help improve engine reliability in order to fulfil championship ambitions. Having a car in a good British chassis would also have helped to identify other performance problems.



#14 Nemo1965

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Posted 11 January 2016 - 08:31

My understanding is that Renault were not like other teams in their work practices, their employees only worked a restricted number of hours per week, rather than what ever was needed and I believe this may have contributed to them never winning the World Constructors Championship which has not always been won by the fastest car, but often won by the most reliable, therefore IMHO, Ferrari easily had the best cars in 1982 and 1983.

 

 

According to the Jabby Crombac biography of Colin Chapman, Renault aspired to be in a position to win a world championship in 1981, 82 or 83. After that the company would operate only as an engine supplier to teams like Lotus. There is a rational argument that Renault needed a customer team to help improve engine reliability in order to fulfil championship ambitions. Having a car in a good British chassis would also have helped to identify other performance problems.

 

These posts hint at something that I believed for some time, although I have no hard facts to corroborate the idea: that French organisations have something typical in their organisation that just does not 'gel' with F1. This thread is about Renault, but the same thing could be said about Ligier. And Matra. All the chances were there but they could just not grab them. If you twist my arm I would say: that typical non-F1 thing of the French is on the one hand the hierarchic, 'elitist' way French employees are treated by their employers, (which does not include an open discussion) and on the other hand (as a result, almost) the revolutionaire 'resisting' attitude of French workers when they are confronted with something they don't want to do.

 

As an example: Gerard Ducarouge, one the pillars of Ligier, in 1984, I believe, went to Lotus which was struggling back then. There, in the middle of the season, he build a new car that immediately was very competitive. Duca and the engineers and the mechanics worked full out, almost day and night for six weeks.  His comment: 'To perform a miracle like that, could never have happened in France. The unions would kill you by holding a sit-in at the factory.'


Edited by Nemo1965, 11 January 2016 - 08:32.


#15 Charlieman

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Posted 11 January 2016 - 15:32

These posts hint at something that I believed for some time, although I have no hard facts to corroborate the idea: that French organisations have something typical in their organisation that just does not 'gel' with F1. This thread is about Renault, but the same thing could be said about Ligier. And Matra. All the chances were there but they could just not grab them. If you twist my arm I would say: that typical non-F1 thing of the French is on the one hand the hierarchic, 'elitist' way French employees are treated by their employers, (which does not include an open discussion) and on the other hand (as a result, almost) the revolutionaire 'resisting' attitude of French workers when they are confronted with something they don't want to do.

I've never believed in "national characteristics" very much. The AGS and Automobiles Martini teams achieved outstanding results with limited resources, so we can assume that French mechanics and engineers put in a lot of free overtime. I reckon the problem is about bigness, the size of a team. There are popular anecdotes about British drivers/engineers visiting Ferrari and asking why the team didn't win every race. Access to money and external resources didn't work for BRM in the early days; it was when Sir Alfred Owen slimmed things down that the team got results.

 

Best wishes to the lean team at Enstone under Renault ownership.



#16 ensign14

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Posted 11 January 2016 - 15:44

Lauda blamed politicians.  He had a deal for the Regie in 1985 but was told they had to yank it from under him, as Miterrand didn't want to tell striking workers that they were paying £1.5m to a foreign employee.