McLaren-Mercedes deal will allow Renault to “focus on ourselves” for 2021

Renault Formula 1 boss Cyril Abiteboul has said that McLaren’s decision to partner with Mercedes from 2021 will allow the team to solely “focus on ourselves” as they won’t be supplying any engines to other teams on the grid.

The French team made their return to the F1 grid as a works team back in 2016 having last raced in the sport in 2010 before becoming less involved and supplying engines to teams.
 
Those teams included Red Bull, Toro Rosso, Lotus, Caterham and McLaren who are the last to be using a Renault powered other than the team themselves in 2020.
 
McLaren have opted to return to its partnership with Mercedes which ended in 2014 but Abitboul says the decision has not affected their 2020 preparation.
 
“In particular for next year there is no impact because the engine for next year is done, it’s on the dyno already, you know that it’s a long lead-time development, so nothing is going to impact what we are doing for 2020,” he said.
 
But with the overhaul of regulations for 2021 on the brink of being confirmed the McLaren-Mercedes deal will leave Renault to purely develop their engine for their own means without any external worries.
 
“It’s going to impact what we could be doing for 2021 on the basis that, when you have multiple customers, in particular the way that Renault is doing it, we always try to satisfy everyone to take on board all the comments in terms of installation, and so on and so forth, so that will be one less distraction,” Abiteboul added.
 
“We will be able to focus on ourselves and just on ourselves. And that’s it. From an economic perspective, there is absolutely no impact and nothing in it, because we sell, more or less, at a cost. Due to the price cap limitation.
 
“So, frankly, it’s nothing, that it’s good news, because, you know, it’s always satisfying to see your product being used by multiple teams but in terms of what we need to achieve and deliver for Renault it has absolutely no impact.