Carlis
19th Nov 2005, 09:23 PM
This week was, apparently, a slow week in Formula 1, but I think that few things in F1 can be more false than my previous statement. 11/16 was the deadline for the teams to register for the 2006 championship; BMW sent new signals that they might try to get rid of Villeneuve for next season; the Super Aguri F1 team announced that they fulfilled the application, but that they will have no response until early december, and Renault decided to "bomb" the media with statements from their public relations department.
The first of such statements came from an "unusual" interview with Giancarlo Fisichella. On that interview, the italian explains how this year's car was suited to fit Alonso's driving style; which is very aggressive on the corners, and how that penalized the roman driver throughout the year. Even though, he mentions that he was able to, at least, match Alonso's pace in some races... (funny thing, he forgot to mention that when that was the case, the team had some "situations" in the pits that made all his efforts just futile, and gave the final impression that Alonso was just way faster than the Italian). Then, he mentions that Flavio already assured him that next year, Renault would have the budget to have 2 competitive cars on the grid... Priceless gem! he is not saying that Renault just worked on one car this year; but he is hinting that it was the case. This was not an off-statement from Fisichella; specially after Briatore, in the Friday Press conference for the Belgium Grand Prix, claimed that the team didn't have the resource to put two competitive cars in the grid. In a sense, Fisichella was just saying what we already knew, but he was adding something more:"Next year, this excuse (the two different cars) will not be valid..."
Then, Renault decided to send another statement, this one about the V8 engine. With the Formula 1 teams (well, the F1 teams other than Ferrari) getting ready for their first test after the Chinese Grand Prix, spectators around the world were expecting to see the first real comparisson between the different V8's. Renault already announced that they WILL NOT be testing their V8 in the final tests of this year. Renault hasn't tested their V8 on track yet, and some analists (is my spelling right on that one? :oops: ) claim that they might fall behind in 2006 because of that. Of course, Renault has the V8 experience of GP2; but the technical specifications are just too different between the two categories to pretend that they have that problem, at least, partially solved. In their statement, they said something like: "We started working on the new engine in October 2004, as soon as they announced the 2006 regulations. We fired it for the first time this summer, according to our initial schedule; and we are just in time according to our program". An statement made for the sponsors: "Don't worry, we are not behind, we just work "different" with respect to the other teams".
And now, again, we have more statements from Fisichella... in this new statement, he has a good friendship with Alonso, and next year, with a "better environment" inside the team, he expects to perform better. Another excuse that he has closed for 2006: Some people says that one of the reasons for the difference between Fisichella and Alonso was that the team was working for Alonso, putting Fisichella on the side. With this "better environment", and the "two winning cars" for 2006, Fisichella is, slowly, running out of excuses for next season.
The three statements, clearly, will make smile some of their sponsors. No one wants to be associated with a team that openly admitted that they just work for one driver (like Flavio did), or for one team that is not ready for 2006. Also, is quite a remarkable coincidence that the three statements came out the week of the deadline for the 2006 registration; and even more, a few days after the F1 sponsors forum came to an end.
All this has lead me to ask to myself: Why Renault is doing this? They won, they should not be trying to make the sponsors smile even more... they should be happy by now. What are they trying to gain with that? Why do we have this aggressive PR campaign all of a sudden ? :?:
The first of such statements came from an "unusual" interview with Giancarlo Fisichella. On that interview, the italian explains how this year's car was suited to fit Alonso's driving style; which is very aggressive on the corners, and how that penalized the roman driver throughout the year. Even though, he mentions that he was able to, at least, match Alonso's pace in some races... (funny thing, he forgot to mention that when that was the case, the team had some "situations" in the pits that made all his efforts just futile, and gave the final impression that Alonso was just way faster than the Italian). Then, he mentions that Flavio already assured him that next year, Renault would have the budget to have 2 competitive cars on the grid... Priceless gem! he is not saying that Renault just worked on one car this year; but he is hinting that it was the case. This was not an off-statement from Fisichella; specially after Briatore, in the Friday Press conference for the Belgium Grand Prix, claimed that the team didn't have the resource to put two competitive cars in the grid. In a sense, Fisichella was just saying what we already knew, but he was adding something more:"Next year, this excuse (the two different cars) will not be valid..."
Then, Renault decided to send another statement, this one about the V8 engine. With the Formula 1 teams (well, the F1 teams other than Ferrari) getting ready for their first test after the Chinese Grand Prix, spectators around the world were expecting to see the first real comparisson between the different V8's. Renault already announced that they WILL NOT be testing their V8 in the final tests of this year. Renault hasn't tested their V8 on track yet, and some analists (is my spelling right on that one? :oops: ) claim that they might fall behind in 2006 because of that. Of course, Renault has the V8 experience of GP2; but the technical specifications are just too different between the two categories to pretend that they have that problem, at least, partially solved. In their statement, they said something like: "We started working on the new engine in October 2004, as soon as they announced the 2006 regulations. We fired it for the first time this summer, according to our initial schedule; and we are just in time according to our program". An statement made for the sponsors: "Don't worry, we are not behind, we just work "different" with respect to the other teams".
And now, again, we have more statements from Fisichella... in this new statement, he has a good friendship with Alonso, and next year, with a "better environment" inside the team, he expects to perform better. Another excuse that he has closed for 2006: Some people says that one of the reasons for the difference between Fisichella and Alonso was that the team was working for Alonso, putting Fisichella on the side. With this "better environment", and the "two winning cars" for 2006, Fisichella is, slowly, running out of excuses for next season.
The three statements, clearly, will make smile some of their sponsors. No one wants to be associated with a team that openly admitted that they just work for one driver (like Flavio did), or for one team that is not ready for 2006. Also, is quite a remarkable coincidence that the three statements came out the week of the deadline for the 2006 registration; and even more, a few days after the F1 sponsors forum came to an end.
All this has lead me to ask to myself: Why Renault is doing this? They won, they should not be trying to make the sponsors smile even more... they should be happy by now. What are they trying to gain with that? Why do we have this aggressive PR campaign all of a sudden ? :?: