FEBRUARY 1, 2006

Faure to retire

Patrick Faure has confirmed to members of the French press corps that he will be standing down from his role as chairman of Renault Sport in the summer. It is not entirely clear when that will be but it seems that it will be between July and October. It remains to be seen whether the company will appoint a successor to Faure.

Faure will be 60 in May and has been in the job since 1986. One of his earliest decisions was to pull the company out of the sport and begin planning for the new 3.5-litre normally-aspirated Formula 1. Bernard Dudot designed the Renault V10 engine and in 1989 Renault returned to F1 and won a string of World titles in the 1990s with Williams and Benetton. Faure pulled the company out of F1 again in 1997 but returned in 2000 when Renault bought the Benetton team and began the process of trying to win the World Championship with its own chassis. The team was turned into Renault F1 in 2002 and won the title last year.