How Renault got its mojo back
Just one year ago, Renault's F1 future looked bleak. Twelve months later, however, the situation could not be more different, with a team pushing to become a race winner again. Jonathan Noble talked to the team's new boss Gerard Lopez about how the team's fortunes have been turned around
Turn back the clocks a year. As Renault personnel began packing their bags for the trip to the Singapore Grand Prix, you could have forgiven them for feeling a bit of dread about the journey ahead.
The team was engulfed in the controversy surrounding its fixing of the 2008 night race, and it was bracing itself for an FIA hearing where, even if it escaped punishment, its parent company could choose to pull the plug on the whole operation. These were the darkest of days the Enstone operation had witnessed.
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Jonathan Noble is Motorsport.com’s Formula 1 editor. Having graduated from University of Sussex Jonathan worked for sports news agency Collings Sports reporting on F1, F3, touring cars and other sports, with articles appearing in The Daily Telegraph, The Independent, Reuters, Autosport and other publications. In 1999 he moved to Haymarket Publishing to become a senior editor at Autosport Special Projects, and one year later he became Autosport’s grand prix editor. In 2015 he moved to Motorsport Network, becoming the F1 editor for Motorsport.com. He is also a member of the Guild of Motoring Writers, and sits on the FIA Media Council.
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