I'm not convinced Renault is even trying all that hard to catch up to the Mercs, my guess is that they are hedging their bets for the 2021 rule rewrite when there will be a more realistic chance for a new top dog to emerge.
A 3rd Alonso WDC would be a f*****g PR victory for the ages for whatever teams gives him the machine to do it. I know Brundle and co think he's got a bad reputation up and down the pitlane, but this is a sport about image and perception essentially, and no one will throw away that fairytale as long as they can tell ALO has the skill to make it happen. Also, Danny Ric in a Ferrari would make me so damn happy. Anywhere that can get him closer to a championship, he's clearly got the skill and commitment.
I think they are trying extremely hard, but that there is a limit to how much Renault is prepared to spend. Even back in the days of Nando winning the title they had one of the lowest budgets, right now they spend less than Williams and about the same as Toro Rosso, hard as that may be to believe sometimes. I can see them being on the teams pushing for simpler engine and aero rules from 2021. The current aero regs are a bit of a disaster for overtaking but have led to two fairly tight championships, go figure.
I thought Renault negotiated the "historical team bonus" after fully convincing everyone they weren't just "Lotus by another name" so the bailifs couldn't keep taking their stuff? Cyril has been making a lot of noise about being the most rapidly growing team over the past couple of years. I don't think money is near as much a concern as it is for the likes of Williams, Force India and Sauber - like someone else said, I think it's more a case of the board of directors drip feeding the team, making sure they can operate properly at a base level, before properly injecting the moolah for the big regulation changes.
They may have, but legal technicalities aside everyone still regarded it as the lotus team with a lick of yellow paint and as such were reluctant to provide their services/products/money having been stung by Lotus. At least initially. Whether that's still the case I'm not sure.
Lotus F1 had relatively little debt by the time they sold to Renault. In 2013 they were something stupid like $200million in the hole, but they got a whole bunch of money out of Ferrari to buy Kimi out of his contract (they they couldn't afford to pay him anyway) and a load more from PDVSA to get Pastor Maldonado his seat. They wiped something like $64million off it in the first half of 2014 alone. One thing they were in big trouble for was unpaid PAYE for their staff, which had gone up into the millions and HMRC were taking them to court over it. Renault paying the bill upfront was part of the sale, as was Renault settling the team's other outstanding debts, which for a company that makes $5billion in profit a year was like clearing up a rounding error. F1 has a real problem with sponsors at the moment, it simply costs too much for the ever decreasing level of coverage. Petronas is leaving F1 to start a Moto GP team with Yamaha next year and it's reportedly costing them less than half what they pay to Mercedes. The Mclaren is blank, the Renault is blank, so is the Haas, the Sauber (unless you count Alfa Romeo), STR only has it's Red Bull branding and Williams lose Martini at the end of the year like Merc lose Petronas. It's something of a crisis and I'm sure it's what will eventually drive in restricted spending limits, Ferrari won't have anyone to go racing with at the rate it's going.
Kubica back in the Williams for practice today, be interesting to see if he goes faster than Stroll again...
TBH I've always wondered if being a blur on the side of a car actually achieves anything. Cool I know who Benson & Hedges are, I don't smoke. Nor do I have a desire to sign up to Vodafone and I couldn't tell you who sponsors FI apart from the fact they are associated with Pink.
It's not about wanting to make you go out then a there and buy said product. It's about brand awareness. Lets say your in the market for a new high end watch. You go into a watch shop and there are three brands infront of you: Rolex, Tag Heuer and Sprads. Now assuming all are of the same quality and no large price difference, which do you choose? 99/100 times people with go with a company they 'know' despite often there being a lesser known brand that may be better value for money. Another example would be people calling skylight windows 'Veluxes' when in fact that's just a brand - there are multiple other manufactures who can make skylight windows but most people insist on having Veluxes. Brand development and/or the luxury association is generally what F1 sponsors are after
It's just one of those weird quirks of advertising - like digital radio stations now targeting specific regions. Does it make me more likely to get Subway for lunch if the advert starts with "hey you, at your desk in Cambridge!". No. But it must work for somebody, or they wouldn't bother spending the time and resources.
It's funny that, I had no idea who BWT were either, until I looked under a coffee machine one day and BOOM, there's a BWT water filter staring back at me and i'm like, damn, I've learned some more useless factoids today.
I understand brand awareness and I'm guessing I'm not the type of person they're targeting either since I research the hell out of everything. I've spent a year and a half so far deciding on a new PC case for example measuring and remeasuring the space and reading reviews. Still haven't pulled the trigger. Massive news for Leclerc. Expect Giovanazzi at Dauber next year. Raikkonen, Alonso or Riccardo at McLaren next year?
Nando to Nascar - chasing victory of any kind Ricciardo to McLaren - chasing the big bucks Raikkonen to Hagen Dazs - chasing the flavour
Interesting, I can't tell if "K-Mag" sounds more like a gun or an icecream.....its too hot for me today
