[NEW YORK]

Renault became the first road-car manufacturer to win the Formula One championship as a full team owner and designer and builder of its chassis and engine. It also won the title again the next year.

But as Renault returned for its home race, the French Grand Prix at Magny-Cours yesterday, the team has scored only 9 points in seven races this season. It is seventh of 10 teams in the series, which Ferrari leads with 73 points.

The Renault drivers - Fernando Alonso, a double world champion, and Nelson Piquet Jr, a rookie - have not made it to the podium.

But Flavio Briatore, managing director of the Renault team, said that things were not that bad.

'Our current situation is that we finished third last year in the world championship,' he said. 'In the last 10 years, only Ferrari and Renault have won the championship. We may need to rebuild the team, but a lot of people need to win their first race.' Before Renault's first title, road-car manufacturers had only won as engine suppliers and part-owners of private teams. They had always left the expertise of building the thoroughbred chassis to the experts. When they occasionally built both the chassis and the engine - as Renault did from 1977 to 1985, or as Honda did in the 1960s - they failed to win the title.

The other manufacturer-owned teams are Honda, Toyota, BMW - which is second in the series - and Mercedes, a part owner of the McLaren team. Ferrari builds luxury sports cars but has always made racing its business.

In winning the 2005 title, Renault spent less than US$300 million, compared with some teams' expenditures of nearly US$500 million.

But for Renault, even that sum was far more than the team had in the late 1990s, in its previous incarnation under the name Benetton.

After winning the championship two years in a row, in 1994 and 1995, with Michael Schumacher driving and the same core staff at the factory in Enstone, England, that Renault now has, Benetton dropped into obscurity.

'In those days we were struggling to have enough money to go racing,' said Pat Symonds, executive director of engineering at Renault. 'It was very important to me to maintain a face of a big team. We were pretending to be a big team operating on a small budget.

The reason it was important was because I was convinced that our future lay in a very close relationship with a major manufacturer, ideally full ownership of a major manufacturer.' Renault bought the team in 2001. It spent a year rebuilding before it changed the name to Renault for the 2003 season, and Alonso won the first race.

Since becoming chief executive of Renault in 2005, Carlos Ghosn has insisted that the company achieve two goals in the sport: contend with the leaders and capitalise on the Formula One image to sell cars.

'We'd like to think that there is a little bit of Formula One in every Renault - that's what the customer wants to see,' Mr Symonds said. - NYT

'In the last 10 years, only Ferrari and Renault have won the championship. We may need to rebuild the team, but a lot of people need to win their first race.' - Flavio Briatore, Renault team managing director

This article was first published in The Business Times on 23 June, 2008