Renault has revealed that it wanted a closer relationship with McLaren for the next cycle of regulations, whereas its current partner wanted to remain solely a customer.
It was announced last weekend that Renault and McLaren’s partnership will not be renewed when its three-year deal concludes, and instead McLaren will return to Mercedes power from 2021.
It leaves Renault with only its own works team to focus on, having previously powered Red Bull and Toro Rosso in the hybrid era.
“I think McLaren is simply looking for a very simple and straightforward customer relationship,” said Renault team boss Cyril Abiteboul.
“Clearly the way that they presented it to us is they wanted a supplier and Mercedes is a very good supplier and have a turn-key product that would be done in accordance to Mercedes standards and specification, and McLaren are just going to be focusing specifically on their chassis – and there is some logic to that.
“Our proposal was very much more about a partnership in which we would share lots of parts, engine integration, chassis installation, but not just that.
“If you look at where we are standing, we are very close with McLaren with almost nothing between us, but there is a wall between us and the top teams – 1.8s or something like that between us and pole.
“For me, the objective of that relationship could have been to work on reducing that gap together, so creating more synergies about equipment, installation and facilities.
“Also looking at the way Formula 1 is going to evolve, with standard parts, open-source parts, prescriptive design parts, there are a number of opportunities to join forces and try together, as we compete on track, try together to reduce the gap to the top. That was our approach.
“That’s why I’m talking about a strategic partnership, which doesn’t mean them becoming a junior team or B team of Renault, obviously that was not going to happen so we didn’t even consider or try that, but our approach was not really of interest for McLaren. Again, it’s not a critique, it’s a fact.”
Abiteboul accepted that it was a “lost opportunity” for Renault but stressed that it does not affect its long-term ambitions in Formula 1.
“I think we would have been stronger together on the basis of our approach to the partnership,” he said.
“So obviously without that we are weaker than what we could have been and it’s a lost opportunity, but it’s not like it’s something that is putting us massively in a different position to the position we are in today.
“Right now there is nothing happening between us and McLaren on these types of things, so there is no change and there is no improvement, there is no degradation also. We just need to get our act together and keep on working in the usual way.”
