MOTORSPORT: Renault a waiting game for Ricciardo

Daniel Ricciardo’s new Formula 1 contract at Renault is for 2019-2020, but the French manufacturer’s racing chief says he has told the Australian it won’t have a world-title winning car for him until 2021.

Cyril Abiteboul said the seven-time Grand Prix winner and carsales.com.au global ambassador cannot expect to be winning in a Renault next year, after he departs Red Bull Racing.

“We sold him the goal of fighting for (driver and constructor) championships in 2021, and to start winning, I hope, in 2020, but not before,” Abiteboul has told French newspaper Auto Hebdo.

“He has also been sold a role that goes beyond that of a simple pilot, but that of someone who participates in building a team.

“His commitment to us proves our willingness to accelerate the recovery process (towards becoming the premier F1 team).

“It’s also recognition of the work we’ve done over the last two and a half years (since buying back the outfit that had been competing as Lotus).

“Daniel’s talent and charisma are a great bonus for us. We have to reciprocate that confidence by giving him the best possible car.”

The first of the nine remaining GPs this year after the mid-season break will be at Spa in Belgium next weekend (August 24-26).

Ricciardo, winner of this year’s Chinese and Monaco GPs, is fifth in the drivers’ championship, trailing Mercedes-Benz’s Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen and Merc’s Valtteri Bottas but 13 points ahead of sixth-placed Red Bull teammate Max Verstappen.

French youngster Pierre Gasly, with just 17 GPs to his name at Toro Rosso, is in line to take Ricciardo’s place at RBR now that Spaniard Carlos Sainz Junior, a Red Bull driver on loan at Renault, will join McLaren after his illustrious but divisive countryman Fernando Alonso’s pending retirement.

Arguably the greatest driver of a generation, Fernando Alonso’s sublime talent seemingly transcends manufacturers – up to a point.

Alonso will bow out of Formula 1 at the end of this year, dissatisfied with the McLaren chassis under and around him and the Renault power unit behind him, but remains contracted to Toyota in sports car racing for another 10 months – until after next year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans.

Yet on September 5 the Spaniard will test an IndyCar at Barber Motorsports Park in the American state of Alabama with a Honda engine.

However, it seems that if the two-time F1 world champion – unlucky not to be a five-time champion yet still the sixth most winning driver in the history of GP racing – pursues an IndyCar career next year it won’t be able to be with Honda power while still racing a sports car for Japanese rival Toyota.

Michael Andretti, whose super-successful IndyCar team uses Honda engines, is trying to create a satellite team that would enable him to field Alonso with Chevrolet power.

That may be where things will hit a snag. There is a big query over whether Honda would let Andretti operate an offshoot, crewed by staff of his, running a Chevy-powered car for Alonso against his flagship team with Honda engines.

McLaren chief executive Zak Brown and Andretti – both stakeholders in Australian Supercar team Walkinshaw Andretti United (formerly Holden Racing Team) – have been trying for months to sort 37-year-old Alonso’s future in American racing.

Having won Le Mans with Toyota this year and the Monaco Grand Prix (twice – with Renault in 2006 and McLaren-Mercedes in 2007), Alonso’s major remaining goal is victory in the Indianapolis 500, which would complete a ‘triple crown’ previously achieved only by the late Graham Hill.

Now that he’s pulling the plug on F1 at the end of this season, there is the prospect of him going IndyCar racing full-time, having stunned the Americans in his one-off start in the 2017 Indy 500 – leading 27 laps before a mechanical failure forced his retirement.

But, racer.com reports that Honda headquarters in Japan “remains at odds with McLaren (not Alonso) for derogatory comments and other issues during the 2016 and 2017 F1 seasons”, when McLaren used Honda’s hybrid power unit.

If nothing can be worked out for next year on the IndyCar front, Alonso is a wanted man – NASCAR has invited him to participate in February’s Daytona 500 and electric open-wheeler series Formula E, run by fellow Spaniard Alejandro Agag, is keen to lure him.