MOTORSPORT: Renault ramps up for Ricciardo

Renault's Formula 1 team will have close to 700 staff by the time Daniel Ricciardo arrives there next year.

But the man in charge of rebuilding the team with which Fernando Alonso won world championships in 2005 and '06 has reiterated that Renault won't be potential winners as soon as carsales.com.au global ambassador Ricciardo joins it from Red Bull Racing.

"We're currently 1.5 seconds from the best [and] it would be ridiculous to say that we can erase this deficit when you consider organisations like Mercedes and Ferrari," Marcin Budkowski told French media outlet Auto Hebdo.

"But Renault is now a big organisation that continues to grow. At the end of the season we will have grown by 50 per cent compared to the workforce present at the buyout of Lotus in December 2015.

"We will be close to 700 people at the end of the year, but that does not mean that the fruit of the collective work of these 700 people will be visible from January.

"When people arrive, a time of adaptation is necessary. When you have young people, you have to train them. And we recruited a lot of apprentices and newly graduated talents. We are only now seeing the benefits of the recruitments of 2016 and 2017."

Going into next weekend's Russian Grand Prix in Sochi, the 16th round of the 21-race season, Renault is fourth in this year's constructors' world championship, but a long way behind the three top teams. It has 91 points to Mercedes' 452, Ferrari's 415 and Red Bull's 274, while fifth-placed Ferrari-powered American team Haas is 15 points behind Renault on 76.

Budkowski is the executive director of the French team, having controversially been recruited from the sport's governing body, the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) last year. Budkowski, a Pole, began with the Renault on January 1, but was not allowed to represent the manufacturer's team publicly until late April at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, where the Red Bulls of Ricciardo and teammate Max Verstappen famously collided.

Budkowski was the head of the FIA's technical department for three years after 10 years as an aerodynamicist at Ferrari and McLaren.

South Korean tyre manufacturer Hankook is vying with incumbent Pirelli to be F1's exclusive tyre supplier from 2020 to 2023.

Michelin declined the opportunity to tender because it disagreed with some of the terms, including the continuation of 13-inch wheels in 2020, before a switch to 18-inch wheels from 2021, and a requirement to produce high-degradation rubber.

While Hankook has never been involved in F1, it is the sole supplier of tyres to the DTM – the German touring car championship – and the FIA's European Formula 3 Championship.

After Toyota's recent hat-trick of wins in the World Rally Championship, the Japanese manufacturer won the latest round of the Australian Rally Championship at the weekend.

The success of the AP4-spec Yaris at the Adelaide Hills Rally was the second success of the season for Canberra youngster Harry Bates and his co-driver John McCarthy.

Bates is now 29 points behind series leader and triple champion Eli Evans and in strong contention for the title at the double-points sixth and final round at Rally Australia, Coffs Harbour, on November 15-18.

Evans and co-driver Ben Searcy were disqualified from heat one in South Australia and penalised 20 points – although they had only been classified 13th anyway after their Skoda Fabia R5 hit a tree on Saturday afternoon. The penalty was for "failure to follow the emergency procedures for a vehicle stopped in a special stage" and they will appeal it.

Bates won that first heat and was runner-up in the second to Evans by 18.6 seconds after a close tussle most of Sunday.

The Yaris won 11 of the event's 17 stages, while 2016 champion Molly Taylor was runner-up for the weekend in her Production Rally Car (PRC) class Subaru Impreza WRX STi. South Australians Zayne Admiraal and Matthew Heywood were the surprise packet, finishing third in their Subaru WRX.

Steve Glenney, who had been second on Saturday, rolled his Subaru on the Mawsons Road stage near where he has lived most of his life and dropped a spot in the championship to third. He will go to Rally Oz with 273 points to Evans' 310 and Bates' 281, while Taylor has 260.

Grant Denyer and Tony D'Alberto have won their fourth race in a row in the Australian Production Car Series – a four-hour event at Sydney Motorsport Park.

It was a one-two for Lotus Exiges, with Ryan Simpson and Jim Pollicina second, and Grant and Iain Sherrin third in a BMW M4.

While the weekend's meeting was the last round of this year's Shannons Nationals, the APC series still has a round to go – a six-hour race at Victoria's Phillip Island on the first weekend of November, when Supercars will be racing at Pukekohe in New Zealand.

The Australian Formula 4 Championship will conclude at that NZ meeting, with Sydney's Jayden Ojeda a 51-point leader (344-293) over his AGI Sport teammate, Queenslander Ryan Suhle, after his record 12th win in a season as he swept the Sydney round.

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West Australian Aaron Love (Team BRM) was on the podium in all three Sydney F4 races but his 268 points leave him one short of remaining a mathematical chance for the title, with a maximum 75 points a round.

Simon Fallon clinched the Porsche Michelin GT3 Cup Challenge in Sydney, after Cooper Murray had gone into the final round 11 points up. Murray qualified on pole position for the final race but stalled on the grid and was hit from behind. Jimmy Vernon won the round ahead of Max Vidau.

The first Virtual Simulation Racing (VSR) Showdown, the first esports event sanctioned by the Confederation of Australian Motor Sport (CAMS), was won by Dylan Shepherd, who started second but led the whole race after pole position starter Andrew Kahl made a mistake that dropped him to the rear of the pack at the first corner – although he recovered to finish third, behind Daniel Benefield.