Renault hopes to persuade Alain Prost

Renault is currently searching for a new team director after Flavio Briatore made the decision to resign. The French team hopes that Alain Prost will be the right person for the job.

The English newspaper the Mail on Sunday reports that: « Prost is the man Renault would like to see restore their damaged reputation, following the biggest scandal in motorsport history. » Some reliable sources also indicate that the current head of Prodrive, David Richards, is eyeing the position left vacant by Flavio Briatore and is ready to step in. Frédéric Vasseur, head of the GP2 team, Art GP, is also in the running.

Nevertheless, if the team is not banned from the Grand Prix in Paris tomorrow, Renault hopes to persuade the four-time world champion driver, Alain Prost, to succeed Briatore as team principal. The Frenchman, who ran his own team, Prost GP, from 1997 to 2001, admits to being shocked by the Renault/Piquet affair.

« Throughout my career, I believe I have worked with integrity, and F1 desperately needs to regain some morality, » he told the newspaper. « It’s incredible to think about what might have happened and what could happen as a result. »

Alain Prost also thinks that a rule should be introduced to prevent a team director from managing the drivers: “The problems start when you have a team director, representing a big factory, a big manufacturer like Renault, who also happens to be the manager of the drivers,” he added. “You have to understand that a young driver like Piquet is very fragile and under enormous pressure.”

Piquet went too far, but it’s something that must not happen again. It’s not correct. If you want to keep manufacturers in F1, you need to have a sport that is cleaner and more integral. Team managers should not manage drivers.

Prost also believes that Flavio Briatore and former Renault technical director, Pat Symonds, will have a hard time finding a place in Formula 1: «It should be difficult for Briatore or Symonds to find a place in F1 but, in sports, you never know. In a moral world, it should be impossible for them to return.»