Abiteboul 'optimistic' Renault will remain in F1 beyond 2020

Renault F1 team boss Cyril Abiteboul is confident that the car manufacturer's new management will continue to support the French outfit's presence in F1.

Following the recent ousting of Renault chief executive Thierry Bolloré, interim CEO Clotilde Delbos has ordered a companywide strategic review that could call into question the car maker's involvement in F1.

The report and scrutiny comes at a time when Renault's top management will need to decide whether to commit or not to F1 from 2021 to 2025 based on the release at the end of October of the sport's new regulations.

• Renault set for major strategic review - F1 future in doubt

"We've just received a draft contract [of F1's new Concorde Agreement] at the end of last week, after the strategy group," said Abiteboul.

"So we are in the process of having a good look at that contract, and we expect that process to be a matter of a couple of weeks or months.

"Let's be honest, it's a complex contract, we need to see how it evolves. We need first to see the deadline of end of October and make sure the World Council is going to ratify what's been sent to the teams, and we'll be taking it from there.

"We will assess if we want to sign up on those terms. Those terms are better terms than the ones we have now, so I have no reason to believe that they will be rejected. But until they are accepted, they are not accepted."

Abiteboul believes that better financial terms inscribed in F1's new agreement is a key aspect that could positively sway a decision from Renault's top executives.

"If everything is better than what we have now, I don't see why we would get to a different conclusion from the one we've made in 2015.

"Yes, the market has changed, the sporting results are what they are. Most important is can we project ourselves with confidence in that period of time, with good results at reasonable cost?

"In my opinion what we will get out of the 2021 measures will go in the right direction, to answer each one of these questions positively."

While F1 was very much the pet project of disgraced former CEO Carlos Ghosn, Abiteboul said that interim boss Delbos is well up to speed on Renault's involvement, having been a member of the executive committee that gave the green light to the manufacturer's five-year F1 programme.

"We have been in the sport for 42 years and we believe that it adds something to the marketing value of the brand and tells a story of technology," added Abiteboul.

"The only thing it says though is that it is becoming more and more difficult to develop innovative solutions for F1 and make use of them.

"That is a point, and maybe there is nothing in it for us from a technological perspective."

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