Renault not planning to replace Vasseur

Renault F1 has said that it does not intend to seek a new team principal to replace Frederic Vasseur, who left the team with immediate effect earlier this week.

"As far as I'm concerned we will not replace Fred in the capacity of team principal," said Renault F1 managing director Cyril Abiteboul on Thursday.

"If we feel we are weakened or held back by the fact we don't have a team principal, we will take action, but I don't think that is a necessity at this point in time."

He was speaking at a media event at the Autosport International Show in Birmingham for Renault's technical partner Infiniti's engineering academy.

Frederic Vasseur leaves Renault!

The official announcement of Vasseur's departure stated that he had left the team "by mutual consent". The Frenchman will continue to run GP2 team ART.

"We don't feel shocked or weakened by the announcement, it was something that was discussed at length with Fred," explained Abiteboul.

"We tried to make it work, but at some point in time, when it's obvious that it doesn't work, we have to make a decision and move on."

Abiteboul himself will now attend every race in 2017 and assume some of Vasseur's responsibilies, with Rob White taking on the role of operations director and Ciaron Pilbeam arriving from McLaren in the role of chief race engineer.

That will in turn allow the team's trackside director of operations, Alan Permane, the opportunity to work more closely with the team's drivers.

"We have a lot on our plate but we have a structure that is very robust and in which I personally believe," Abiteboul said of the revamped management structure at Enstone.

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.