Enstone and Viry-Châtillon
Enstone is the workplace for 500 staff while Viry-Châtillon employs another 250 staff. One location is for the chassis, the other for the engine. Together they became World Champions in 2005.
Enstone
Originally constructed in 1992, nestled away from prying eyes in a corner of deepest Oxfordshire, England, the Whiteways Technical Centre at Enstone is now home to the UK arm of Renault’s F1 operations. Over 500 employees work around the clock producing the latest Renault challenger, from advanced research and development to designing, manufacturing and racing the car itself.

Technical operations on site are headed by Technical Director Bob Bell. During late 2004, he initiated an on-going restructuring of the design office aimed at optimising continuity and efficiency. Consequently, Chief Designer Tim Densham now works with newly appointed Assistant Chief Designer Martin Tolliday, splitting the design priorities to ensure continuity of design direction from car to car, effective season-long development and long-term liaison with the engine unit at Viry-Châtillon and the team’s technical partners on advanced projects.

Performance development is also monitored by the team’s Deputy Technical Director, James Allison. This versatile structure will allow the team to maintain a long-term approach to vehicle design within the framework of stable future technical regulations, while optimizing detailed work on the current vehicle project.

Dino Toso is the team’s Head of Aerodynamics, leading development in the on-site wind tunnel that runs twenty-four hours a day, and whose work is complemented by work on advanced projects at the Fondmetal windtunnel in Italy. Grouped around the wind tunnel are also a dynamic seven-post chassis testing rig, which allows the team to reproduce in minute detail the suspension and damper movements from each circuit, while a gearbox dynamometer was commissioned during early 2004 to allow the team to conduct experimental gearbox research on site.

The team’s philosophy of maximizing control over the production of the car means that Enstone is also an impressive manufacturing base. Operations include the world-leading Advanced Digital Manufacturing centre, in partnership with 3D Systems, where 4 SLA and 2 SLS machines produce 15,000 individual parts a year for testing on the wind tunnel models and the cars themselves. Full-size machining capability was extensively reworked during 2003-4, and the site now boasts among the most modern machine shops in Formula 1 as well as actively investigating new manufacturing processes and technologies.

On-track operations are headed by the team’s Executive Director of Engineering Pat Symonds. He directs operations throughout the Grand Prix weekend, masterminding race strategies while coordinating the engineering team’s approach to the race weekend. Testing operations also fall under Symonds’ remit, and are headed on-site by Chief Test Engineer Christian Silk.

Such tools are essential not only for achieving short-term success on track, but also as building blocks for consistent year-on-year increases in performance. They form the foundations of the Renault F1 Team’s World Championship defence in the coming season.

Viry-Châtillon
In 1976, Renault Sport was established in Viry-Châtillon 20km south of Paris. Since 1992, this Technical Centre has been Renault’s F1 engine development arm. Within its walls, 250 people work on the design, development and operation of F1 engines, in close collaboration with Mécachrome who are responsible for the build of the race and test engines.

Operations at Viry are headed by Deputy Managing Directors Rob White, who is responsible for all on-site technical operations, and André Lainé, who control support operations. Planning is a critical ingredient to success in Formula 1; it is imperative to be able to lay down the main principles of the engine to be used in season N+1 after taking into account the regulations, the performance and reliability objectives and the needs of the team at Enstone.

A project leader for each engine project makes use of all the resources at Viry to realise an engine for each season. Every new engine passes through a clearly defined design and approval procedure before making its appearance in a race. The loop of design – calculation – test is repeated extensively during this process. There is continuous exchange with the chassis team at Enstone of design data and the results of calculation and tests.

In order to work in this way, the Renault F1 Team has established extensive capacities in terms of IT, CAD, calculation, motoring test rigs, mono and V10 performance dynos, V10 and V10/car gearbox dynamic dynos. Prior to the approval of any specification intended for race use, it must be homologated over a demanding simulation of the Grand Prix event on the dynamic dyno.

Once the engine build specification has been homologated, the performance definition of the engine must be optimised, in terms of settings and engine mapping on the dynos at Viry. Following assembly by the team’s long-standing partner Mécachrome, the final stage of the approval process comes on the track, where performance, reliability, mapping and settings are all validated for race use. If an engine completes this final development phase satisfactorily, it is then approved for use at a Grand Prix – where zero-defect reliability is the team’s constant objective.

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