Forty years ago Renault made its Formula 1 bow at the British Grand Prix with Jean-Pierre Jabouille, bringing with it turbo power.
The team is celebrating the milestone throughout this year with a series of videos, and the French marque fittingly took over a garage in the ‘heritage’ pits at Silverstone during last weekend’s British Grand Prix for a special display.
Rene Arnoux was on hand, too, to unveil a commemorative teapot that’s due to be sold – for a mere €129! – in homage to the RS01’s nickname.
Watch the videos below, and if you weren’t able to see the British Grand Prix display, take a look through the photos from Silverstone.
Renault pioneered turbos in F1 and this brave move should have reaped dividends. Instead, these fell to the latecomers. Mark Hughes tells a story of… frustration…
Jean-Pierre Jabouille took up his pole position slot at Dijon 1979. The sun glinted off the bright yellow bodywork, and as he looked in his mirrors he saw the heat haze rising from the burbling V6, that crazy engine that was about to change the face of racing. He was in the ‘zone’, experiencing that perfect feeling of invincibility only ever granted a favoured handful of sportsmen.
“I looked in the eyes of those around me,” he says, “people from the team and from Elf. All I saw was pressure, worry. But I didn’t feel any of that, I was at a different place. I knew I couldn’t lose.”
He still knew, even as Gilles Villeneuve took advantage of his normally-aspirated Ferrari’s better response off the line and led the Renault away. He knew even as Gilles led the first half of the race. When the moment came, on lap 46, Jabouille’s move at the end of the pit straight was clinical. As was his subsequent devastating sequence of laps that convinced even Villeneuve his cause was lost. At the flag the turbo Renault was 15sec clear of the epic Villeneuve/Arnoux battle for second.
Max Verstappen could secure his fourth F1 drivers' crown at this weekend's Las Vegas Grand Prix. Motor Sport looks back on the key races which could put the Dutchman's name among F1's greatest
The Formula 1 drivers' title might be as good as won, but the race towards the constructors' championship could find new traction in Las Vegas — with a new series and the cold desert air possibly throwing a spanner in the works
An "aggressive" Las Vegas GP schedule last year saw F1 drivers ill and exhausted after a week in the dark, juggling "showbiz" commitments before travelling on the longest flight in the world. It's part of the job, they say
He won GP titles with Benetton, Ferrari and his own Brawn team, then helped steer F1 to unprecedented popularity. As Ross Brawn turns 70, Matt Bishop looks back at a remarkable career — plus the multiple times he antagonised the engineer