Bob Bell – Renault's quiet leading force

CHASING PERFECT HARMONY

F1’s current hybrid era requires perfect harmony between the chassis and the engine, as highlighted by Mercedes’ dominance since 2014. Speaking of the Silver Arrows, it is worth remembering how Bell was instrumental in implementing a winning structure at the German manufacturer a few years ago.

Let’s go back to 2010 when Ross Brawn, whose role as Mercedes team principal kept him quite busy, was looking for a capable engineer to head the outfit’s technical department. The former Ferrari tech chief found that special mind in Bell, poaching him from… Renault.

The latest recruit’s first assignment was to re-build a technical core that had been depleted following the forced restructuring of the Brawn GP era, a situation not too dissimilar to what Bell found at the ex-Lotus outfit upon his return to Enstone in early 2016.

Having begun in his new capacity at Mercedes in April 2011, Bell started by hiring top engineers Geoff Willis and Aldo Costa. While some scoffed at the presence of four former technical directors in the team, Bell foresaw the magnitude of the challenge at hand and felt this was the right thing to do. Future results would vindicate his vision beyond expectations.

Bell also set about implementing seamless cooperation between chassis engineers and their power unit counterparts. If developing a more powerful engine is a good thing per se, this will also imply having bigger coolers that will hamper chassis efficiency and hurt overall performance. Perfect harmony has been one of the major lessons that Bell has taken from his Mercedes stint and tries to apply in his current role.

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“Renault is now a full works team, and we have to exploit to the maximum the advantages that that brings to you. The main advantage is the ability to truly integrate the power unit with the rest of the car and to exploit that.

“What I can bring is just to reinforce to the team the importance of that, and exploit it in every way possible. Formula 1 is a about small margins, and there are definitely real benefits to be added in good integration.

“Not just in the design of the chassis and the power unit, how they fit together, but in the way they operate together, the harmony of the control systems, in the way that you operate the car, and in the way the team operates itself and uses the car to get points on Sunday afternoons.

“This advantage is really only shared by Mercedes and Ferrari. With these power units, with the sophistication of these cars now, it is a real advantage to be a works team. It is a much more integrated challenge than it was previously. It is about Enstone and Viry being one group of people – geographically separate of course – designing, developing and operating a racing car.

“We have obviously a view on how we want the two entities to work together. It is not rocket science. It makes it more difficult because we are separated by the English Channel. Clearly for Ferrari it is a lot easier because they are all in the same building.

“It is a little bit difficult for Mercedes because they are 30 km apart, and actually there is not a lot of difference between being 30 km apart than being 300 km apart. You are either in the same building or you are not.”