Renault RE40
Elf | |||||||||
Notable drivers | 15. Alain Prost 16. Eddie Cheever | ||||||||
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Debut | 1983 United States Grand Prix West | ||||||||
First win | 1983 French Grand Prix | ||||||||
Last win | 1983 Austrian Grand Prix | ||||||||
Last event | 1983 South African Grand Prix | ||||||||
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Constructors' Championships | 0 | ||||||||
Drivers' Championships | 0 |
The Renault RE40 is a
Design
Ground effect had been banned at the end of 1982, and so the car was built around a flat-bottomed arrangement. It featured enlarged wings to try to claw back as much of the lost downforce as possible. It was also the first Formula One car to feature exhaust routing such that it increased the downforce created by the diffuser.[citation needed] René Arnoux had left the team to be replaced by Eddie Cheever, whilst Alain Prost was now undisputed no.1 driver. The RE40 was designed around his driving style, and he racked up many miles of testing to avoid the unreliability of the previous two seasons.
The RE40 was the first Renault chassis to be built entirely of
Within the novel chassis sat Renault's, by now venerable, Renault Gordini EF1 turbocharged 1.5-litre V6 engine. The unit had first been introduced with the Renault RS01 in 1977, and was the first turbocharged engine ever to win a Formula One Grand Prix. Over the years the engine had been uprated and subtly redesigned, and the twin-turbo (one per cylinder bank) evolution within the RE40 produced a claimed 880 bhp (656 kW). However, the turbochargers themselves were to prove the RE40's weakness in 1983, and on numerous occasions turbo troubles ended Prost or Cheever's race. Alain Prost later recalled that "that year there was a good turbo to have and a bad one. We had the bad one".[1]
Competition history
Prost scored consistently and took four wins during the season. He led the drivers' championship for most of the season, ahead of Arnoux who was now at Ferrari alongside another championship contender Patrick Tambay, and 1981 World Champion Nelson Piquet in the Brabham-BMW, but at the final round in South Africa the turbo in Prost's car failed and Piquet won the title by two points.
The RE40 was best suited to the faster tracks such as
Prost was tired of Renault's inability to put together a consistent challenge for either championship and was sacked at season's end after publicly criticising the team for their lack of development on the RE40. He would join
Alain Prost's win at the Austrian Grand Prix would prove to be the French team's last win in their original run in Formula One, with the team failing to win a Grand Prix in either 1984 or 1985 before Renault pulled out of Grand Prix racing as a constructor at the end of 1985.
The RE40 was replaced by the first round of 1984 by the RE50.
Complete Formula One World Championship results
(key) (note: results shown in bold indicate pole position; results in italics indicate fastest lap)
Year | Entrant | Engine | Tyres | Driver | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | Pts. | WCC |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1983 | Equipe Renault Elf
|
M | BRA | USW | FRA | SMR | MON | BEL | DET | CAN | GBR | GER | AUT | NED | ITA | EUR | RSA | 79 | 2nd | ||
Alain Prost | 11 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 8 | 5 | 1 | 4 | 1 | Ret | Ret | 2 | Ret | |||||||
Eddie Cheever | 3 | Ret | Ret | 3 | Ret | 2 | Ret | Ret | 4 | Ret | 3 | 10 | 6 |
References
Sources
- Dro, P. 2007. Close quarters. Motor Sport, 83/12 (December 2007), 86-90
- "Renault RE40". Grand Prix Racing. Archived from the original on 2007-11-22. Retrieved 2007-11-11.
- "Renault: Renault RE40". StatsF1.com. Retrieved 2010-09-09. (French)
- "Renault Gordini EF1". AllF1.info. Retrieved 2007-11-11.
- "Car Model: Renault RE40". ChicaneF1.com. Retrieved 2007-11-11.