Multiple sources in the industry are reporting that it will be announced later today that David Richards’s Prodrive operation will be acquiring the Renault F1 team. The team will be known as Prodrive Renault for the next two years and then it is anticipated that the whole operation will be rebadged as Aston Martin.
The team was, of course, run by Richards back in the Benetton era. He took charge of what was then Benetton Formula in September 1997 but departed a year later after failing to convince the Benetton Family to sell some of the shares in the team to Ford, in exchange for a factory supply of engines. He went on to become the team principal of British American Racing until Honda took over at the end of 2004. Since then Richards has tried several times to get control of an F1 team and in 2006 Prodrive was granted an F1 entry for 2008, with the plan being to buy a McLaren chassis and Mercedes-Benz engine. A change in the rules that stopped this happening put an end to that project.
Prodrive is also believed to have considered applying for an entry last year but decide against the idea because it was not keen to use Cosworth engines.
joeblogsf1 
yikes! what about Robert Kubica then? Is Mercedes move possible for him?
Phewwwww…The manufacturer led breakaway series…. lucky escape there.
Good ole Max, sitting in that smokey men’s club in leather chaps must be revelling in the satisfaction of being right.
That’s great news for Banbury, and British motorsports in general.
Aston Martin F1? Bring it on!
Very much so I’d say. There’s a reason Mercedes have only announced one driver so far, I suspect this could be it. Depends of course if Robert has a get out clause.
Joe, any idea on engines? The name Prodrive-Renault implies a Renault badged engine perhaps?
It is completely illogical for Renault to shut down Viry-Chatillon. That would right up there in terms of stupidity with Honda selling its F1 team to Brawn and watching all of its investment creating success for other people and ultimately being sold to rival Mercedes-Benz… Remember that Renault could win the World Championship in 2010 with Red Bull Racing…
was there any credibility to the Gravity rumours?
was there ever anything to the Gravity rumours or was the Tung call up merely coincidental?
[Sorry for OT]
@ Piotr
Is this Piotr from totalf1 forum maybe?
Good news if it comes off, Dave R is probably more interested now Mosley is in his rocking chair.
Good news. He’s a sharp operator and passionate about racing.
Thanks Joe!
J
Finally some good news. And with Autosport reporting that Toyota is not selling to Stefan GP or anyone else and that Sauber will be offered the 13th slot, things are looking healthier at last.
Some interesting calculus for Kubica though — try to go to Mercedes where he will certainly be shunted into the second car as soon as they can manage to lure Vettel, or stay as undisputed number one at an organisation which has some technical ability and which should start to rise again once the distractions of the recent past die down.
And if Prodrive Renault bring Kobayashi on board, together with the Panasonic/Denso/KDDI backing, they could have a credible second driver and a new title sponsor with it.
Surely Kobayashi offers the best combination of ability and sponsorship available at the moment? Although I suppose Petrov, assuming his abilities translate to F1, is not too shabby on either front.
Didn’t Renault promise to make a “long-term commitment to F1” as part of not being slapped with a $100m fine or a permanent ban over the Singapore crash?
Piotr – polish lame. Always thinkin bout kubica…
I can see this being written by the mainstream media as “another blow for F1” but I think it’s far from it. Prodrive in F1 would be fantastic. They’re enthusiasts in the same way McLaren and Williams are. Racing is their business (granted McLaren has diversified a tad) and because of that have more soul than a purely Renault team could manage.
So in my view, this is very good news indeed !
Nick Gilmartin – I am not sure it is great new long term for Banbury. I think Richardson’s could move to Enstone for a new permanent base due to better infrastructure at that site
Renault will presumably remain as an engine supplier to Prodrive and Red Bull for the time being.
Excellent news if Prodrive are coming in. David Richards to my mind combines the pazazz of Eddie Jordan, the nouse of Patrick Head, the passion of Ken Tyrrell and the organisational skills of Ron Dennis.
I agree that ProDrive and Richards back in F1 are good news indeed. By the time a new engine formula gets on the way in 2012 or later Aston can have something sorted and the whole thing would drift away from Renault. There must be doubts that Renault would commit to a new F1 or world engine anyway.
BTW, wasn’t part of the “leniency” that Renault received regarding the Singapore scandal in exchange for some long term commitment to F1?
Mosley wasn’t right. Manufacturers don’t come and go willy-nilly. The manufacturers have a much better record of staying in F1 over the last 30 years than the independent teams. He pushed the manufacturers out because he wants small teams that he can bully. He made it inhospitable for them, he made F1 irrelevant to road car engineering (no CVTs, banned active suspension, no innovation allowed etc.), Max transformed an engineering led series into a defacto spec racer series with endless regulations, std. ECU, engine freeze, spec tire, etc. Then he blames those with engineering and innovation interests for leaving.
In addition to a policy of endless war with the teams, Max makes sure there are endless court cases, scandals and rulings like Spa 2008 etc. Who would want to stay? Even Ferrari have talked about leaving for LMP. Things are not well in F1… unless you like the idea of a Cosworth II era of kit cars. All the panache and cache will migrate with the manufacturers wherever they end up. Right now that looks like it is going to be LMP.
The problem with the “freeze” is that the FIA has been empowered as almighty arbiter of performance. And delusional egalitarianism is antithetical to the spirit of racing.
And then Renault or Renault through the agency of Red Bull want the FIA to “grant” them another dispensation vis-a-vis an engine power increase. This coming from the team that won the last three races on the trot.
And what of Cosworth? If they appear to have more power than the rest what then? They have hired many engineers from MB, BMW and the rest while they are allowed to develop their 2010 engine. If they have less power will the FIA make Ferrari, MB, etc. detune their engines?
Politics, not engineering now rules the day. It is time to end the freeze and get back to racing and engineering.
In 2012 when the new engine rules take effect… will the engines once again be frozen? Will the teams be allowed to develop? Will development be administered by FIA bureaucrats overseeing the engineers’ every move?
The sad regulatory remnants of the Max Mosley era continues to bear its ill-conceived fruit. Does Jean Todt have anything new to offer? If so, the time to speak and act is now.
BTW, who is going supply tires next year and how are they going to develop them with no data and a testing ban? What if they are found to be unsafe because of these things? Will the FIA be liable for any injuries/deaths attributable to these restrictions? Much more to come from the ghost of Mosley.
I love the idea that some people see Max as a visionary for spotting that the manufacturers would leave the sport. Everyone else knew this would happen when he and Bernie were doing everything they could to recruit manufacturers to bump up the value of Bernie’s commercial rights package. Go read any decent publication at the time and you will find every journalist worth his salt saying that as soon as the economy dips the manufacturers will disappear immediately.
Max didn’t spot the problem. He caused the problem. He drove the independents out of the sport.
Joe interesting comment you made about Renault winning the Championship with RedBull. Why not with their own team? Is it that you don’t rate their designers highly or that you rate Newey above everyone else?
I would love to see “Gulf” liveried F1 cars.
If Renault sel to Prodrive they will DEFINATELY not transgress the suspended ban! Wonder if there is a “buy back clause”. Mow that Dave can name his own car wonder if it will be the Prodrive Renaul TP110. after Tom Price. Sort of a Ligiet – J Shlesser thing?
Renault could probably argue that the post-Singapore “long-term commitment to F1” is covered by providing 2 teams with engines for another couple of seasons.
Better than the complete pullouts of BMW, Toyota, Honda who didn’t even leave any engines.
F1 has no shortage of teams but engines are a bit more tricky…so maybe the FIA doesn’t want to go rocking THAT boat.
I’m with graham on this, a great post.
Moseley is only seeming prophetic because he has laid the ground to prove himself right – the land-mines that he laid are now exploding. I’m not a ‘glass-half-empty’ person but unless the FIA and Bernie wake-up soon to what is happening to the sport, their investment and our favourite hobby is in for a period of decline.
Talking last night to someone whose son is doing brilliantly in GP2 and is looking like a potential future F1 star, it amazed me that he is unpaid and still lives at home with his parents. OK, he’s still young at 22 but if he gets to F1 next year, say, he might suddenly be paid millions a year. Where is the logic in a system which creates a step-change in drivers’ lives like that?
The sport needs to be properly invested-in and not made to lurch from one politically created crises to the next.