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Originally Posted by bjohnsonsmith
Was there any indication Renault were on the slide? Looking at both Alono's results and the team's results for 2005 and 6, they were similar. The team's performance in 2005 was slightly worse, as Fisichella had 5 retirements as opposed to 2 in 2006.
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He signed for McLaren at the end of 2005, so at that stage performance was not visibly on the slide and, like you say, 2006 was very successful (albeit a much closer fight for the title than 2005).
But long term it was always going to be the case that Renault wouldn't stay on top. They don't spend as much money as other manufacturers, Briatore always hated going a penny over budget and eventually the big spenders McLaren and Ferrari would topple them. If they needed to spend twice what Renault did to get on top then they would have done.
The other thing to remember is the performance of McLaren in 2005. They actually won the most races overall and had the faster car for a great portion of the year, though tbf Renault unleashed all their performance in the final race at China and beat McLaren handily suggesting they were holding back quite a lot whilst they wrapped up the driver's title.
Alonso was certainly proven correct. Indeed it is something of a myth that he has always chosen the wrong teams, he only really did so when he had no other options on the table.