Renault takes top awards in London

The Renault F1 Team saw its championship success recognised yesterday in London at the Autosport Awards. For the racing world in Great Britain, Autosport is the bible – or ‘the comic’ as many call it. And the magazine’s spectacular end-of-season awards ceremony, held in the splendid surroundings of the Grosvenor House Hotel on Park Lane, brings the great and the good of Formula 1 together for a true celebration of the year’s achievements.

Now, some die-hard racing folk would have you believe that the only trophies that matter in Formula 1 get handed out at the end of year in Monaco at the FIA Prizegiving. But among the many awards that the end of any season brings, the Autosport Awards hold a special prestige. And in 2005, seeing McLaren and Kimi Raikkonen win Racing Car and Driver of the year rankled with the women and men at Enstone and Viry, after their efforts had brought home two world championships.

But the balance was redressed last night amid black ties and ballgowns on Park Lane, as the double world champion Renault F1 Team was awarded both ‘Racing Car of the Year’, and saw its departing champion Fernando Alonso scoop ‘International Racing Driver of the Year’. What’s more, the awards were accepted on behalf of the team by two unsung heroes of the championship success – Chief Designer Tim Densham, and Head of Aerodynamics Dino Toso.

Summarising the team’s title challenge and its difficult mid-season moments, Dino Toso commented: “It made us stronger. There was a real commitment in the team - that if they didn’t want us to win it then we would go out and do exactly that. We fought for it and it made the team stronger."

Tim Densham also praised the spirit that sustained the title push, and didn’t forget his colleagues over the Channel in Viry: “The atmosphere in the team, even when we had problems, was unbelievable all through the year. And we know that we were lucky having the Renault engine because the thing was so reliable, probably the best engine of the grid."

All in all, it was a fine way to round off an historic season, and what’s more, they did it in front of Jack Brabham – the man who, with Cooper in 1959/60, became the very first person to achieve the ‘double double’ championship that Renault repeated in 2005-6!