McLaren Racing and Renault Sport Racing announced a new three year engine deal starting from the 2018 F1 season. After weeks of behind the scenes negotiations, a flurry of official announcements were made on Friday at the Singapore Grand Prix. McLaren announced the end of their three year partnership with Honda. Renault confirmed they were ending their engine supply to Toro Rosso at the end of the season and switching their supply to McLaren from 2018.
McLaren and Renault confirm new engine deal
The marquee British team (814 races) and the long time French engine supplier (591 races) will be collaborating together for the first time in Formula 1. Renault has a well-established reputation as an engine supplier having supplied championship winning customer and works teams over the years. The current engine in not on par with the Mercedes and Ferrari engines, but has still unlocked potential that could see it catching up with the leading engine manufacturers in the upcoming seasons.
Cyril Abiteboul, Renault’s Managing Director said:“We are pleased to confirm a new partnership for Renault Sport Racing and McLaren Racing and excited to embark on this new relationship of these two historic brands in Formula 1 cooperating together for the first time.
“This agreement is perfectly in line with our mid-term strategy and with our objective to be in a winning position as a team in 2020. We are looking forward to seeing the Renault brand on next year’s McLaren and racing our new partners on track.
“McLaren is an inspirational team with two talented drivers which should not only support our engine development efforts but also act as a reference and an example in the ongoing construction of our chassis operations,” he added. “This is an exciting new beginning with a championship-winning team that is hungry to return to glory.”
Jérôme Stoll, the President of Renault Sport Racing noted the benefits of this new engine deal: “It is the first time that Renault will work with McLaren and we are proud to have reached an agreement with an organisation that has such a rich Formula 1 history,” he said.
“This alliance is not only technical and sporting, but also comes with marketing and communication benefits. We know that McLaren will push us hard on track and this competition will be to the benefit of all.”
Zak Brown added: “Today’s announcement gives us the stability we need to move ahead with our chassis and technical programme for 2018 without any further hesitation.
“As an organisation, McLaren has always worked extremely hard to form lasting partnerships with its technical suppliers. We’re convinced that we can bring real value to Renault Sport Racing as we work alongside it to develop this current power unit into a regular race winner.”
From 2018, two iconic names of Formula 1, McLaren and Renault, will start working together. McLaren will hope this partnership will yield better results for them than the recently annulled partnership with Honda.
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