We’re then whisked along to the hermetically-sealed world of carbon-fibre production. It’s a process that takes time, whereas Renault can come up with an idea and have something made almost immediately – it isn’t just on track where being quick makes a difference. The team creates 85 per cent of the car’s parts in house, where other teams, without machine shops for example, have to use external suppliers to get things done. The machine shop has shrunk over the years as other areas of the manufacturing process have grown, but it’s still a fundamental area of the business, and one that Renault believes will keep them nimble going forward. It was refreshingly simple, a reminder that a Formula 1 car, despite its worth, despite its complicated design, is still just a car. We walk into the machine shop and are greeted by some of the more senior members of staff working at benches with drills and hammers, the kind of environment you’d expect to find in a school design and technology class. You’d expect everything about a Formula 1 factory to be insanely complicated, like walking through a set of a sci-fi movie, but it isn’t. Our first few minutes in the factory are fascinating. To understand how Renault will force its way to the front of the grid once again, and to see how a Formula 1 team prepares for a new season, I took a trip to Renault’s headquarters in order to claim a title in Formula 1 you need to have a good home and a strong team, a solid base from which to grow. The goal? To get the Renault name back to the front of the F1 grid – an ambitious target, for sure, but what’s the point of being in F1 if you don’t have a goal? But 2016 saw Renault reignite its constructor ambitions, buying back Lotus F1, partnering up with Infiniti (formerly Red Bull’s partner for the 2010-13 four constructor titles and Sebastian Vettel’s four drivers’ titles) and creating the Renault Sport F1 Team. Renault’s more recent F1 history has been complicated to say the least, having dropped away from Formula 1 as a constructor in 2011, becoming Lotus Renault GP and Lotus F1. Despite a difficult entry into the sport in 1977, over the course of several decades Renault went on to deliver two Constructor Championships, 10 titles as an engine supplier, and seven world champion drivers with 11 drivers’ championships, despite a hiatus from the sport from 1986-2002.
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