Renault F1 Exec Dir Budkowski Admits Team Has A Lot Of Ground To Cover

Renault F1 exec says team is far from catching the "big dogs in the sport."GETTY IMAGES

A top Renault Formula 1 official admitted the team is "nowhere near ready to challenge" for the F1 world title, according to GMM. Not even the team's new exec director, Marcin Budkowski, "thinks Renault has a chance at catching the big dogs in the sport anytime soon." Budkowski, a former FIA official who "controversially switched to the French carmaker's works F1 effort, has been active in restructuring Renault." He said that those efforts "will need to continue" even after current Red Bull driver Daniel Ricciardo joins the team in '19. Budkowski said, "We're currently 1.5 seconds from the best. It would be ridiculous to say that we can erase this deficit when you consider organizations like Mercedes and Ferrari. But Renault is now a big organization that continues to grow. At the end of the season, we will have grown by 50 percent compared to the workforce present at the buyout of Lotus in December 2015" (GMM, 9/21).