Renault fans wanted Montagny at Interlagos!

By role
October 19 2004

After loosing the second place on the Championship at the Italian Grand Prix, the Renault Formula 1 team came to an agreement with Italian driver Jarno Trulli to break their contract and let him go to his new team at Toyota.

At that time Renault had the chance to promote test driver Frank Montagny as racing driver. However, in a surprising decision Renault came to an agreement with former World Champion Jacques Villeneuve for the remaining three races of the calendar.

In a surprising twist of events hours later of the Villeneuve announcement by Renault Sauber Petronas made a public a deal with the Canadian for the 2005 and 2006 seasons.

Renault that already has a signed deal with Italian driver Giancarlo Fisichella was hoping to convince Peter Sauber in allowing the Italian move early to the Anglo French squad in exchange of the earliest service of the Canadian. Peter Sauber was not interested in parting ways earlier with the Italian ace in what proved to be the right decision as Fisi has scored in the last five races for his team.

Jacques Villeneuve has raced so far in China and Suzuka and has tested three days for the Renault team. Even if his speed has been competitive, even outqualifying Alonso at a wet Suzuka, his race pace has been more than disappointing often lapping one second slower than his teammate.

The reasons for this lack of pace are mainly lack of knowledge of a difficult to handle R24 and lack of shape after being almost one year away of Formula 1 racing. The fact that Villeneuve had never driven in the Michelin tyres also may have hampered the effort of the Canadian. None of this disadvantages could have been found in a Montagny who has completed one of the most demanding test programes of any test driver in Formula 1 this season.

Villeneuve finished both races though in 11th and 10th position while Alonso was able to score twice with a 4th at Shangai and a 5th on Suzuka. With the high form of the BAR Honda team in the last two races Renault has seen the gap to the second place grow to the current 16 points what makes it almost impossible to recuperate.

As Jacques was brought to the team in order to fight for the second position and that goal is less than possible now, some insiders wondered why Renault does not give a final chance to a test driver that has been doing most of the 40.000 testing miles the team has clocked this season.

In a recent poll conducted by Renault Rockets 75% of the voters thought that Renault should dump Villeneuve and go for Montagny on the final race of the season against 24% that defended Jacques’ right to the final race.

Former World Champion Alain Prost was critical of Renault’s decision to employ the Canadian:

"Villeneuve will go to Sauber next year, with different tyres, and he will carry with him some astuteness, and I do not find that very good or smart, and I think that Montagny is the one who is more deserving to enter Formula One."

The Renault F1 team has taken Montagny to Brazil, but as a reserve driver as it will be Jacques Villeneuve again for the final race of the season.