BENETTON BENETTON-RENAULT

In this part of the book you will find interesting and complete information about BENETTON & BENETTON-RENAULT

• The 2000 season was the third year in which Giancarlo Fisichella and Alex Wurz competed together for Benetton and everyone hoped that the results would be better than those during the disappointing 1998 and 1999.
• After finishing fifth in the Constructors‘ Championship in 1998 the team fell backwards with one place in 1999, winning only 16 points, unlike the 33 in 1998. Only the teams of Prost and Sauber separated them from the weakest teams in the Championship – Arrows and Minardi, as in the last 7 starts of the season they did not score any point. Fisichella‘s second place in Canada was the only place on the podium for the team that season.
• In fact, this result gave the final points of the season to Fisichella after the last 10 starts he did not have even a single point. Fisichella‘s performance was the reason for most of the points during the season. Alex Wurz took only 3 points with his fifth place in Austria. Although  Fisichella won starting positions in the first three raws in three of the competitions, the performance of the team  in qualifications was below average and Wurz had little chance to show what he was capable of with his back starting positions.
• After the young Italian scored in four of the first six races, the things seemed reasonable for Benetton, although the overrated front torque transfer system did not bring the promised improvement in the quality of the car and the team that won its first title only in 1995 failed to become a contender for the title. Many accused the low power Supertec engine for the  misadventure but the car was designed to be too radical and failed. The failure of the B199 model caused the termination of Nick Wirth from the team. The chief designer retired three weeks after the end of the season as a result of disagreements with the chief executive Rocco Benetton and was replaced by Tim Densham in the final stage of the development of the B200. A month later the team manager Joan Villadelprat also quitted. The 2000 car was developed according to the return to traditions policy which gave Benetton hopes that it would help the team to find its place in the Championship. Wind tunnel which was completed in 1999 in the factory of the team in Enstone, was well used to find the optimum aerodynamic shape of the car and the generous budget of Renault, helped to construct a lighter engine. As Rocco Benetton said on the model B200 presentation at Formula One, “If you stand in one place, you start moving backwards”.
• In 2001 the team would compete with an engine delivered by Renault and since 2002 the team became owned by Renault………………