[LM24] Renault at Le Mans (Come here to Speculate)

[Audi Racer]

just pure speculation. Did anyone else notice the Renault Rent sponsorship of the pescarolo. I think Renault will be back with Pescarolo in a couple of years. Henri will surely head over to Renault to do some convincing. Renault is a french manufacturer after all. In addition Renault is a direct competitor to Peugeot. It only make sense that they could be could be back considering the no longer have to shell out millions on an F1 effort besides engine supplier which is a profit bussiness.

LeMans will be the new it in the next few years. You can bring your tech to the race track.

[photopigg]

I for one would love it if Renault went to Le Mans, wonder what new tech Renault would come up with????? can you image Peugeot V Renault at Le Mans!! WOW

[joeb]

Could it be a return with some type of partnership with Nissan as well?

[Victor_RO]

I think we're reading too much into this, it's just sponsorship from the local branch of the company's car-rental scheme. It only involves the transport of team personnel and the transport of various bits&bobs related to the racing car. It's just to take care of the team's logistics, nothing to do with the engineering part of Pescarolo Team.

[kurski]

Imagine the reaction of the crowds if in the last hour of Le Mans if a Renault and Peugeot were battling for victory in LMP1, nose to tail.

Renault said the return of Le Mans last time in June 2009.

[JAG]

In last weeks Autosport those running Renault F1 said a P1 had been put on the back burner until the next reg revision in 2014.

[Simmi]

It's an interesting situation because, as JAG says, you have the guys running the F1 operation who have mentioned it. Then you have the tie up with Lotus who are known to be coming in to sportscars soon.

Then you have the factory, which seems to be a separate entity altogether. But as others have said, it would be incredible.

If they wait long enough the 40th anniversary of their win will come around.

[Tim the Grey]

Hmmm. It's not quite VAG, but Pug and the Regie aren't about to fight head to head at Le Mans. They are actually quite interconnected at various levels.
Economic realities, you know.

[Audi Racer]

Originally Posted by Tim the Grey

Hmmm. It's not quite VAG, but Pug and the Regie aren't about to fight head to head at Le Mans. They are actually quite interconnected at various levels.
Economic realities, you know.

No. BMW- and Peugeot are together. Renault and Nissan are together.

[vyselegend]

Originally Posted by Audi Racer

No. BMW- and Peugeot are together. Renault and Nissan are together.

Ford also take part in some of the BMW-PSA shared engine programs.
PSA are also tightly linked with Mitsubishi (Actualy the only electric model of Peugeot and Citroen are rebaged Mitsubishi i-miev, same goes for their 4x4 btw), and their have been some partnerships with Fiat too.

The Renault-Nissan group on the other hand includes Renault, Nissan, Infinity, Dacia and Samsung.

For some reason I don't wish to see Renault in P1 now, unless they revive the Alpine label, maybe... But that sounds like a credible alternative for the after-F1, now that they've raped their own team with that Lotus stuff.

But we have to consider that, unlike Toyota, Renault hasn't anymore the property of it's england based facilities, no wind tunnel, CFD etc... So If I were Audi or Peugeot, I wouldn't feel any reson to be afraid of a Renault LMP1 program. ATM they should only worry about themselves... And Toyota!

[Mal]

I think a full Nissan branded effort is more likely but that could, of course, be run from Renaults facilities in France.

[chernaudi]

As far as the PSA and Renault connection, they shared the PRV V6 and still share a 3.0 V6 engine design for transverse front wheel drive vehicles.

However, at this stage, I think that Nissan will be more likely to join in the sportscar fun and frolic, as Peugeot are there in the LMP1 class already and Nissan seem to be wanting to join in with the GT-R in the FIA GT1WC and plans for a GT3 version of the GT-R, and with Zytek distributing Nismo 4.5 V8s.

[Pandamasque]

This thread reminded me of something I read last year.

7.19.10

>>Over a month after the 24 Hours of Le Mans and we are still lacking definitive regulations for 2011. The Technical Working Group (TWG) meetings are held quarterly in order to discuss amongst the manufacturers and suppliers the direction of future regulations. The last TWG meeting was held June 30th. In the mean time, while we wait, this came our way. The minutes of the last Technical Working Group meeting. There seems to be precious little discussed regarding 2011 which leads one to believe that the Version 4 regulations will ultimately be released little changed.

One does wonder why the Renault F1 Team was one of the participants...

Discuss...

http://www.mulsannescorner.com/newsjuly10.html

[vyselegend]

Hey, welcome on ten tenth Panda! I think you'll fit yourself well here.


Sure, it's easy to read into RF1's representatives attending the TWG meetings, but IMO it's just logic, considering what was their next step (i.e disinvolvment from F1). Since (IMO) sportscar racing is the raising motorsport of the moment, it makes sense to get involved a bit, just to check which way the wind blows there.

Progressively leaving F1 activity, Renault will indeed have to find a new top level sport to promote themselves. I'm pretty sure they must have also approched WRC, WTCC or DTM (or wathever they will call it after it's internationalisation in 2014) as well.

Let's not forget there were other manufacturers attending the meeting, which means they show interest in the discipline but aren't necessarily decided to take part in it (Think about Mini, Volkswagen and Volvo attending WRC regulation meetings, yet only Mini stepped in finaly).

[AGD]

I'm sure Le Mans is on Renault's radar. How could it not be? Having said that, I don't see any solid evidence that they are planning on jumping in right now. Nissan is a different story.

It would not surprise me at all if Renault (and Peugeot) want to see the ILMC go to South America and race more in China/Asia. Maybe Renault would join if that happened. Of course, the ACO would need the help of the automakers like Renault to make races in those markets successful.

[CTD]

This shows all car manufacture relations in the world .

Any PSA-Renault connections is purely technology sharing, so there is no problem with running a Renault Lmp against a Peugeot Lmp.
But i do see the Nissan badge more likely for a Lmp "return", as Renault stand pretty solid in the European market, but Nissan doesn't, there for there could be huge PR interest in running a Nissan instead of a Renault.
However, i do not see Renault/Nissan as a third, forth or fifth fighter, as they scares from the 390GT1 is too deep (a lot of money put into a project which got almost none of the attention because of the Mercedes-Toyota-Porsche-Bmw battle)

[Speed-King]

I think Renault's next big programme will be in WRC... they have cars for all the smaller classes now with the Twingo R1 and R2, Clio R3 and Megane R4... the next step would clearly be S2000 and/or WRC.

[JAG]

Originally Posted by AGD

I'm sure Le Mans is on Renault's radar. How could it not be? Having said that, I don't see any solid evidence that they are planning on jumping in right now. Nissan is a different story.

It would not surprise me at all if Renault (and Peugeot) want to see the ILMC go to South America and race more in China/Asia. Maybe Renault would join if that happened. Of course, the ACO would need the help of the automakers like Renault to make races in those markets successful.

I think South America will be the next ILMC addiction as it's such a large market for European manufacturers, you can see this with the number of WRC rounds in the region.

[Pandamasque]

Originally Posted by vyselegend

Hey, welcome on ten tenth Panda! I think you'll fit yourself well here.

Thanks, you're a legend ))

I can't see Renault being very welcome in DTM. That series is basically run by manufacturers. And 'premium brands' do not want to risk being beaten by Renault. Isn't it the reason why BMW left WTCC for a less technically relevant series like DTM in the first place?
WTCC is... well R.I.P. WTCC.
WRC seems very logical for Renault.

As for Nissan, they (Buncombe, forgot the name, sorry) said it's strictly a European customer project until they succeed at Le Mans and succeed to impress the Japanese board so much that they catch the Le Mans bug again.

On a side note: Joe Saward posted about Red Bull Racing being powered by 'Infiniti' from now on.

[Tim the Grey]

CTD? Could you mail me the link for that chart? I could use that at work!

[gwyllion]

Originally Posted by Tim the Grey

CTD? Could you mail me the link for that chart? I could use that at work!

Entering the right search terms in google I found http://jalopnik.com/#!5626658/who-ow...er-family-tree

[Tim the Grey]

Cheers, I tried that, but obviously, not as well...