This year will see Renault’s 35th year of competition in Formula One, producing ten Constructors’ titles and nine driving titles, and they will be hoping that the RS27 will bring more glory with Red Bull this season.

Having added another new team to their supply for two consecutive years Renault Sport will feel assured that they can continue to improve their performance. “We learnt from the experience of 2011 when we added a third team, and we put in place measures to ensure that there was no drop off in overall performance or service in doing so,” said Rob White, deputy managing director of Renault Sport F1.

One of Renault’s main challenges for this season was adapting the engine around the new exhaust regulations. The rule change regarding the necessity to run rear facing exhausts, to a certain extent, returns the exhaust specifications back to those used in 2010. “It’s not been as simple as turning back the clock as the cars have evolved since then, as have the rules concerning torque maps and engine settings.” Added White.

Changes to the shaping of the exhaust have come as good news to Renault as they feel they could have an increased engine output of 10-20bhp. This is made possible by straight and completely round final sections of the exhaust, which allows for the reopening of the outlets. Each of Renault Sport’s customers will be looking to maximise this gain, and with the use of KERS it could prove to be a vital passing tool in a straight line. Caterham in particular will be excited by this prospect as they head into 2012 looking to use their new KERS system as their stepping stone into the midfield. They believed that not having KERS in 2011 cost them potential points scoring finishes.

The introduction of a twenty-race calendar in 2012 will put a lot of pressure on engine manufacturers to insure reliability throughout the season and Renault Sport have been making any possible tweaks to put each engine through its three-race weekend expectation. “Between seasons we have worked hard to optimize parts to give consistency across their life and, therefore to give consistency across all our engines, regardless of their mileage. This should allow us to deliver engines with a theoretical unlimited kilometre range within the tacit three races weekend per engine expectation, which will give us an advantage with flexibility with 20 races on the calendar this year.” Said White.

Renault Sport F1 will be aiming at securing further World Championships this year as Red Bull and Sebastian Vettel push to make it a hat-trick for both Constructors’ and Drivers’ titles. Lotus F1 have come out of the blocks quickly, as they did last year, and with a seemingly comfortable Kimi Raikkonen they are looking to take atleast fourth spot in the teams championship by the season end. However, the most intriguing battle for Renault Sport and Formula One fans is likely to come between Caterham F1 and Williams F1. Caterham begins this season looking to catch the likes of Williams, and having both teams running the same engine is set to give us a good indicator of how this year’s regualtions have affected each squad.

Fans have been on tenterhooks for months to see whether the 2007 world champion, who is still only 32 years old, would make a comeback, following in the footsteps of Michael Schumacher, who spent three years on the sidelines before coming back with Mercedes in 2010.

Like Schumacher, Raikkonen was eased into early retirement by Ferrari. The Finn has been in rallying since he was dropped by the Scuderia after a disappointing 2009 campaign, but started talking to Williams in September about making an F1 comeback. They got a long way down the line, even to the point of discussing promotional days, but it didn’t work out.

Instead he has done a deal with Lotus Renault, with whom he had a bit of a spat in September 2010 over the subject of a potential comeback. At that time it was a rumour which the team was openly discussing and the Finn didn’t like them using his name in that way “for their marketing purposes.”

Boullier at the time questioned Raikkonen’s motivation: “I would have to speak personally with him first, look him in the eyes to see if I see enough motivation there for him to return to F1,” he said. “It doesn’t make sense to hire somebody, even a former world champion, if you cannot be sure that his motivation is still 100%. Why should you invest in somebody who leaves you guessing.”

The question of motivation is one that has troubled teams about a possible return, but the signs are clearly there that the Finn still feels he has unfinished business in F1 and also an appetite to earn some more money.

Raikkonen himself says that motivation is no problem, “I wouldn’t come back if I wouldn’t be motivated,” he said. “There’s always a lot of talk about the motivation but nobody really knows what I do or what I think apart from myself, so I don’t really care what people say. I enjoy [being able] to come back, I wouldn’t put my name in a contract if I wouldn’t think that I would really enjoy it. So it will be interesting and it will be exciting to get back.”

It looks like Boullier and Raikkonen have put all that behind them now with this exciting deal, which is great news for F1 fans as it brings back one of the best supported drivers, witha a huge world wide fanbase.

“My time in the World Rally Championship has been a useful stage in my career as a driver, “he said. “but I can’t deny the fact that my hunger for F1 has recently become overwhelming,” he said. “It was an easy choice to return with Lotus Renault GP as I have been impressed by the scope of the team’s ambition.”

Raikkonen has 18 wins, 62 podiums and 16 pole positions to his credit. He is also close friends with reigning champion Sebastian Vettel, who is a neighbour in Switzerland.

Team owner Gerard Lopez said, “Kimi’s decision to come back to Formula 1 with us is the first step of several announcements which should turn us into an even more serious contender in the future. Of course, we are all looking forward to working with a world champion. On behalf of our staff, I’d like to welcome Kimi to Enstone, a setting that has always been known for its human approach to Formula 1.”

While Tyrrell begat BAR, which begat Honda which begat Brawn which begat Mercedes which chased furiously after the Red Bulls.”

Name changes in Formula 1 are as old as the hills; it’s a business and takeovers are an essential part of business life.

They aren’t always allowed, as Tom Walkinshaw found when he tried to turn Arrows into TWR, but generally where it’s in most people’s interests to see strong brands with staying power in F1 the powerbrokers don’t stand in the way.

Today in Geneva the F1 commission met and sources confirm that the three teams seeking to change names have been allowed to do so, without any loss of earned income under the Concorde Agreement rules.

Virgin’s ill starred two year adventure has come to an end. The brand has gradually reduced its presence as Marrussia’s presence has increased and the now the small volume Russian car company is the brand which billionaire scientist Andrei Cheglikov has decided to use for the team which he now controls. It’s a smart move to get it done now, while Team Lotus was looking for approvals to make its changes.

Meanwhile the Lotus vs Lotus battle has ended with Tony Fernandes also rebranding his team around a sports car brand. Caterham F1 Team, probably with Air Asia tacked on the front as title sponsor next year, will be the platform for an ambitious strategy of marketing low cost sports cars to Asia and linking in with Fernandes’ other sporting asset; Queens Park Rangers football club.

The Lotus Renault GP team meanwhile also has the right to change its chassis name away from Renault to Lotus, should it choose to do so. Group Lotus is a sponsor at present, but the agreement with Genii has clauses under which it could become an equity partner.

Renault sold its interest in the team to Gerard Lopez’ Genii concern at the end of 2009 and since then has moved to focus solely on engine supply.

The new five year deal signed with Red Bull makes it clear that RBR is Renault’s “works” team from now on, which makes them effectively a manufacturer backed team as far as engines go at least.

The net cost to Renault of taking this route and supplying other customer teams, is less than a third of what it was when it ran its own team. Like other manufacturers who pulled out in 2008/9, Renault found that owning an F1 team means you have to win or lose funding when economic times get tight.

Ironically now they are engine suppliers to Red Bull Racing they are winning everything, as they did when they were engine suppliers to Williams and Benetton in the mid 1990s.

Times change, names come and go, but some things remain the same..

This deal is significant in that it means that not only will the team use the current V8 units with the Renault KERS system for 2012 and 2013, but is committed to the marque for the new generation of fuel efficient V6 1.6 litre turbo engines from 2014 onwards. Part of the deal is a technology collaboration between Red Bull Technology and Renault to work on innovations for the 2014 engine. These will benefit all Renault customers, which will also include Williams.

Despite occasional grumbles from Red Bull senior management about a lack of power over the last five seasons, the partnership with Renault has been very successful with both world titles last season seven victories and no engine failures in a 100% faultless record this season which is likely to lead to another clean sweep of titles.

With the Renault deal has come a technical and sponsor partnership with oil company Total. In addition to getting money from the deal, Renault also has branding on the drivers’ helmets and on the engine cover of the car. This reflects the company’s strategy for F1 to be a profit centre, rather than a cost. The Renault team, currently known as Lotus Renault GP, is owned by investment firm Genii and sponsored by Group Lotus. Renault’s only involvement is to supply engines, as it does to Red Bull. But there seems to be some activity around this team in terms of its ownership and branding moving forwards. The way is clear for it to rebrand as Lotus, if the two sides feel that this is appropriate.

Meanwhile Renault number two Carlos Tavares was asked recently by French colleagues about the possibility of Renault coming back as a team owner and he said, “Having an F1 team as a manufacturer is a double edged sword. You have to win. And if you do not win, it’s serious. The solution of being an engine supplier makes sense and is clearly more long term for a manufacturer.”

It’s clear that Renault Sport, the division of the company which runs the F1 engine programme, regards Red Bull as their number one team now, almost a works team and Christian Horner alluded to this when the announcement was made.

This is emphasised by statements from Renault about how they see the importance of the integration of the engine and the chassis aerodynamics, especially post 2014. They also couch their communications in terms of “They are world champions and we are world champions.” The evolution of the blown diffuser and Renault’s work on ignition timing to improve it are a good example of the close integration of the two sides.

There is also the Nissan/Infiniti connection, with Infiniti branding on the car and the likelihood that Red Bull will be able to benefit from Nissan/Renault battery technology in the post 2014 era, when electric becomes a more important part of the package than currently.

On a side note, young French driver Jean Eric Vergne is going to be doing some Friday driving for Toro Rosso shortly. But when it comes to the Young Guns test at Abu Dhabi, there seems to be a view that he might be given a run in the Red Bull car, as Daniel Ricciardo did last year.

This would make sense in terms of a benchmark. And as Ricciardo is now racing for HRT, he is ineligible for the Young Guns test, so they may as well turn to Vergne next.

His replacement, Bruno Senna, said that he has a confirmed deal for two races, Spa and Monza and that beyond that it depends on some legal issues but that “the intention is to do the rest of the season.”

Renault confirmed this at 4pm with a statement saying, “The team’s present intention is to give Bruno the opportunity to race for the rest of the season. However, some legal issues have not been fully resolved as yet and, as a result, the team will make another announcement on this matter in due course.”

The picture is further clouded by French sources who suggest that the plan for some time has been for Romain Grosjean to drive the car from Singapore onwards.

However it seems that the recent fund management deal between Renault team owner Genii and the Brazilian WWI Group has changed things a little. The picture should become clearer when Genii boss Gerard Lopez comes to the circuit. Last night Heidfeld’s management team issued a statement about its intention to force its position through the courts and said that it belives money lies behind the decision and that the move had been made “for apparently purely financial reasons. We do not intend to rest before Nick’s legal position has been fully restored.”

Heidfeld looked quietly defiant as he stood in the Spa paddock outside the Renault motorhome answering questions. It looked a spontaneous move, his name was not on the Renault media schedule for the day and he was there to make his point. There was little he could say; he refused to say when the team told him that he would not be racing in Spa,

“There are court proceedings so I cannot tell you much,” said Heidfeld. Each driver wants to drive. I believe that I have a valid contract and I want to drive. We will see in three weeks, there is a main hearing and we will know then. I’m here with the team this weekend, I have a contract and I will just do what I can do.”

Meanwhile Senna said that his task, coming in half way through a season with no testing and just 25 laps of Free Practice in Hungary made it difficult to get to the level of the current drivers but he would do his best.

“It is going to be a big challenge to come back into the middle of the season, a bit later than the middle of the season, to go racing. But I have been participating in all the meetings with the engineers, and am up-to-date with all that is going on at team. Hungary was useful to know how the car could go, but it will be an uphill battle to get on the form of these guys, who have been racing for 11 races now. But I am really looking forward to it, hoping to progress fast and repay the faith the team has given me.

“I know I have to learn how to deal with the tyres from the first set to qualifying, and learn how to deal with tyres in the race. All this experience I don’t have, so it will be the first time. If I can be anywhere near Petrov, that will be a good reference.”

The challenge of getting the best out of the tyres in qualifying will be significant. Senna had only one set of tyres to work with in Hungary and set his fastest time towards the end of his 25 laps stint. At that time, on a similar programme to Petrov, he was faster, but getting it all together for the Q1 and Q2 laps will be the crucial thing. Although he had a season with the back of the grid HRT team last year, he seems to be treating this like his F1 debut proper, his chance to show the F1 world what he can do.

Asked about Michael Schumacher and his 20 years in F1 he said that he hoped to battle with the German for points on Sunday. Certainly the Renault is close on pace to the Mercedes so the prospect is real.

A brief statement said only that he would race in Spa in place of Nick Heidfeld and that he would be in the press conference. The team will announce more details in due course.

The news was first broken by BBC’s Eddie Jordan on Monday and comes after a disappointing campaign for Heidfeld, who was drafted in to replace the injured Robert Kubica. Senna drove in Hungary on Friday morning as a prelude to this opportunity. Like his former HRT team mate Karun Chandhok in Germany, he is being given a chance to show what he can do over a race weekend.

There have been suggestions from team principal Eric Boullier that he would like to run Romain Grosjean in the car this year, the French/Swiss driver is managed by Gravity, which is part of the Genii group that owns the Renault team.

At the same time, Genii announced earlier this month an important strategic tie up with WWI Group, to create a $10 billion investment partnership. As the statement said, “The two companies will focus on private equity investments in Energy, Renewable Energy, Real Estate, Information Technology, Telecommunications, Oil, Gas and the Automotive sector. Their association gives birth to the 8th most powerful private equity investment company in South America.”

The idea is to get Brazilian investors to diversify their portfolios, so it’s very much Brazil focussed.

Clearly Bruno Senna being from such a significant Brazilian family, there must be some positive connections here, but it’s not clear at this point whether he will hold on to the seat to the end of the season or whether Grosjean will get a run once he’s clinched the GP2 title. For a driver, Senna is a very good communicator and an effective operator in social and business situations.

Long term the driver situation is fluid; Renault still has to wait on Kubica who is in rehabilitation after his rally accident. There is talk of him trying out an F1 simulator in the next month to assess the repair to his damaged bones and nerves.

This weekend marks the 50th race since Renault’s last win in F1.

Heidfeld is on the sidelines again, a position he’s become accustomed to. He had a great podium at the start of the year in Malaysia, but since then he’s not had a great run, with five further points finishes, but retiring from three of the last five races. He has been outqualified 8-3 by Vitaly Petrov and sits two points ahead of him on 34 points. Renault are 14 points behind Mercedes in the constructors championship and 31 points ahead of Sauber, so Mercedes are probably the most relieved by today’s news as it makes it less likely that they will be caught for fourth place with Petrov and Senna in the Renault, even though Schumacher sits below the Renault drivers in the table currently.

This was the second fire for the German this year. He had just made a stop in which he was delayed and the sidepods caught fire.

“In his second pit stop we had a problem with one of the wheel nuts meaning that the car was sat at high revs for a long time, ” explained LRGP chief race engineer Alan Permane. “This meant a build-up of heat which caused a fire. Although it looked spectacular it was only a small part of bodywork which burnt on the left-hand sidepod.”

This video, shot by a spectator, shows the incident far more clearly than the race pictures.

Renault have not mentioned the explosion in any official communications, nor said what caused it. Paddock speculation was that it could have been a KERS battery, but Renault have said “no 100%” to this today. They are carrying out an internal investigation.

Engineers say that the high pressure air system is also housed around there and there are other high pressure hoses which would blow the side of the car out if the pressure was released quickly.

It makes uncomfortable watching from the point of view of the fire marshal, who is hit by some debris from the explosion. This may well prompt a review of packaging to avoid a repeat of the incident.

It shows how hot everything runs with modern F1 cars and with exhausts exiting at the front of the sidepods, how close to the edge these things run.

The circumstances are rather different this time, in that Williams joins a list of customers including Red Bull Racing, Lotus Renault GP and Team Lotus. Back in the 1990s it was for a the works team, with Ligier and then Benetton coming along in 1995 to also get the engine.

The deal is for 2012 and 2013 for the current V8 engines, which won last year’s world championship with Red Bull. But as Williams’ chairman Adam Parr points out, “We are already working on an extension for the new engine formula which arrives in 2014.”

This is backed up by Renault Sport chairman Bernard Rey’s view that they enter the partnership,

“With a view to continuing after the introduction of the new, energy efficient, turbocharged V6 engines in 2014.”

The deal will make Renault the largest supplier of engines in F1, ahead of Cosworth, Ferrari and Mercedes. It means that Cosworth goes down to just two teams for next year; Virgin and HRT. And with the announcement of their technical partnership with McLaren that may well see Virgin becoming another Mercedes customer.

Parr notes in his comments that the reason for the split with Cosworth was, “We had an understanding with Cosworth that continuing beyond this year was dependent on the longer-term prospects with the new engine. So, this was foreseen.”

In other words this is as much about positioning and technical stability at the point where the new breed of F1 engines comes in for the 2014 season, as it is about the next two years.

This deal has been in the offing for some time and really accelerated in recent weeks when the picture became clearer about what direction F1 engines were taking in the future.

It’s interesting that these strategic plays are coming in now.

And as far as Williams are concerned, with a new technical team and a new engine partnership, they cannot be accused of sitting idle.

The Pole in the Renault was impressive on Thursday in free practice, but he was on a mission this morning, lapping the principality in 1m 14.806s, just 5/100ths ahead of Felipe Massa. Mark Webber was a whisker behind in the Red Bull with Hamilton fourth, two tenths off Kubica’s time.

But if Kubica’s declaration of candidacy for the new Prince of Monaco was the feel good story of the morning, the eye catching headline was the accident of Fernando Alonso, who crashed the Ferrari at Massanet, just on the entrance to Casino Square. Ferrari say the car is not repairable and Alonso will miss qualifying, while the mechanics build up a new chassis for him overnight. He will start tomorrow’s Grand Prix from the pit lane. Alonso said simply, “I lost the car.”

It was a rare mistake from Alonso and potentially a very costly one, as the mechanics have a scant two hours to repair the car and Alonso has lost a lot of vital time to prepare. If he gets a result in qualifying this afternoon it will be an amazing achievement.

Alonso’s misfortune will have been greeted with glee from his main rivals this weekend as he had been shaping up to mount a challenge for pole and the race win.

It looks to be between Kubica, Massa, the Red Bulls and Hamilton, but any of the big names could hook a lap up.

MONACO GRAND PRIX – FINAL PRACTICE

1. Kubica Renault 1:14.806 25
2. Massa Ferrari 1:14.852 + 0.046 22
3. Webber Red Bull-Renault 1:14.945 + 0.139 24
4. Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 1:15.038 + 0.232 24
5. Vettel Red Bull-Renault 1:15.046 + 0.240 25
6. Schumacher Mercedes 1:15.236 + 0.430 21
7. Rosberg Mercedes 1:15.252 + 0.446 20
8. Buemi Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1:15.537 + 0.731 21
9. Sutil Force India-Mercedes 1:15.659 + 0.853 13
10. Button McLaren-Mercedes 1:15.682 + 0.876 22
11. Liuzzi Force India-Mercedes 1:15.691 + 0.885 19
12. Alguersuari Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1:15.769 + 0.963 26
13. Hulkenberg Williams-Cosworth 1:16.164 + 1.358 24
14. Barrichello Williams-Cosworth 1:16.232 + 1.426 21
15. Petrov Renault 1:16.240 + 1.434 26
16. Alonso Ferrari 1:16.266 + 1.460 6
17. Kobayashi Sauber-Ferrari 1:16.644 + 1.838 25
18. de la Rosa Sauber-Ferrari 1:16.696 + 1.890 22
19. Kovalainen Lotus-Cosworth 1:17.782 + 2.976 18
20. Trulli Lotus-Cosworth 1:17.865 + 3.059 26
21. di Grassi Virgin-Cosworth 1:18.063 + 3.257 24
22. Senna HRT-Cosworth 1:19.720 + 4.914 25
23. Chandhok HRT-Cosworth 1:19.781 + 4.975 21
24. Glock Virgin-Cosworth 3 (Hydraulics)

I will post separately on the wider topics of our conversation, which include his plans for Renault, how he is helping F1 engage with the internet and mobile phones and a whole new business model for an F1 team.

But the eye catching headline from the chat was what he said about Robert Kubica, who is a possible Ferrari target for 2011.

Kubica is having a strong season in the Renault, with 44 points on the board in only the fifth fastest car. He had a second place in Australia, fourth in Malaysia and fifth in China.

Recently there have been a lot of rumours suggesting Ferrari is lining up a move for Kubica as a possible replacement for Felipe Massa. He is known to be a favourite of Sergio Marchionne, boss of Ferrari’s parent company FIAT.

I spoke to Kubica’s manager Daniel Morelli at the weekend and he said that they have not yet been approached by Ferrari, but I got the impression that they were expecting some contact and should Ferrari make an offer, this would give Kubica quite a tough decision,

When I spoke to Lopez, I asked him how he was going to hold on to Kubica and he made it quite clear that he would build the Renault team around Kubica, in much the same way as Ferrari was once built around Michael Schumacher,
“He’s a racer, he lives for racing not politics, ” he said. “Robert has a unique opportunity to build a team around him. Few drivers have the talent that he has to do it and few teams would do it with someone.

“If he feels that the team is going in the right direction to become world champions, which is our intention, then he has no reason to go somewhere else. We both know what we are talking about (partnering Alonso at Ferrari). He would start a 100 metre dash, 200 metres behind the line. I don’t know if he’s interested (in going to Ferrari) but he’s a young driver, so he has plenty of time. If we can provide him with a car and a platform to win then I think there is a high probability that he stays.

“Our objective is to ensure that he contributes as much as possible. In his previous team (BMW) one of the big issues with Robert was that he couldn’t communicate as he wanted because he feared the backlash. Here he is being motivated and pushed to speak as much as he can. It’s a good fit. I’ve never seen him smile as much as he does now.”

Renault proved as recently as 2006 that it has the ability to win races and championships and most of the people are the same, with the obvious exception of Pat Symonds and Flavio Briatore, who left the team after the Singapore crash scandal.

Lopez has noticeably restored the self confidence of the team after the scandal,
“The thing I’m proudest of is that this team has regained confidence to act as a constructor,” he said. “This team is proud to be Renault. It thinks for itself and acts for itself, it’s proud of itself and all that with the Renault name. I knew we could do it, but I didn’t know how quickly it would happen or how much.”

Lopez said that he encountered negativity in the early stages after the Singapore scandal when going in to see companies, “But it’s our job to make sure that we got rid of that,” he said. “The talent was always there. We arrived from the outside and people know us from other sectors and know what we do. We said that we want to do the same thing at Renault and they got it straight away.”