Renault to Cut Staff at Enstone F1 Base

Renault might stay in Formula 1 for at least one more season, but staff reduction seems to be the price for the team to stabilize their budget for 2009. With in-season testing being completely banned by the FIA in the upcoming season – except for the Fridays before the F1 races on schedule – some of the mechanics were facing the prospect of being laid off before the season opener in Australia.

The inevitable is about to happen during the next few days, according to some sources revealed by the f1-live.com site. It appears that Renault have already started some sort of evaluation for their staff on January the 7th, with more than 100 employees due to be made redundant within the next month.

Also, according to ESPN Racing-Live.com, Renault have already confirmed that cutting staff will be part of their strategy for the upcoming season because of the new testing ban and reduction of wind tunel usage imposed by the FIA in December 2008. According to the aforementioned source, a “certain number of redundancies” will get under way before the start of the season “as a consequence of rule changes in F1.”

Staff cutting is no news in the F1 world these days, as most teams have announced a reduction in testing budgets for the upcoming season. Also, the rules introduced by the FIA for both 2009 and 2010 affect the work being done in the aerodynamic compartment. Wind tunnel usage will be cut to a minimum, so investment in that area would be money down the drain.

It is expected that all big teams – especially F1 manufacturers – will operate such staff reductions in the next few months, with the estimate being around 100 employees per team. Ferrari is currently the only team in the F1 paddock to insist they will not cut anyone from their paychecks ahead of the 2009 campaign.