Bob Bell’s first task as Renault team principal was to convince a media scrum in Singapore that the French team would bounce back after being found guilty of fixing last year’s race.
Renault’s former technical director told reporters: “I think temporarily the team is not going to look perhaps in the greatest of light, but the team will pull through it,” Bell, who is standing for Flavio Briatore, told reporters in Singapore. Life moves on. Formula 1 is no exception and I think that the team will pull itself out of it.
“It will demonstrate what it does on the track, and in the factories, and show again to people that we deserve the high reputation that we have always held.”
“I think for the ordinary guys in the factory, and indeed for all of us, myself included, we were quite genuinely sitting there thinking we could potentially lose our jobs over this,” he said. “How are we then going to pay the mortgages?
“There were very deep and heartfelt feelings in the factory of, first of all, sadness that we would find ourselves in the situation in the first place. And then, of course, the consequences of it – for the team members as individuals and their families. And the concept of the team itself, which is something we are very proud of.
“We do genuinely subscribe to the view that we are a real racing team and most people in the team feel themselves as being a member of a family, an extended family, and we are very proud of it. But we were never comfortable with the situation we found ourselves in, and the consequences that we could have gone out of business as a result.”
