First picture: New Renault makes its debut on track

2020 F1 season

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enault’s new car for the 2020 F1 season is running for the first time today at the Circuit de Catalunya.

The team issued a monochrome photograph of Esteban Ocon driving the RS20. Ocon covered 100 kilometres in the car which will next run when testing begins on Wednesday.

Renault issued teaser photographs of its car in a special testing livery last week.

Three other new F1 cars ran at the Spanish track today: Williams’ FW43, Haas’s VF-20 and McLaren’s MCL35.

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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16 comments on “First picture: New Renault makes its debut on track”

  1. Renault are certainly keeping their cards close to their chest about the changes to the cars aero, that photo shows practically nothing.
    Maybe they’ve hit on something that will catapult them into the title fight…or not :)

    1. @johnrkh That’s what I was thinking, too. They’re either very confident that they’ve hit on something big, or they’re just being mysterious for no other reason than to create hype.

      I’d love it if they came out swinging with a terrific car, if only for Daniel’s sake. That man needs to get back on the podium, preferably the top step. Hopefully the reliability is good, though. Fast doesn’t matter if you can’t make it to the end of the Grand Prix.

  2. Ory (@the-orycle-26)
    17th February 2020, 8:50

    One is still curious about the wee gentleman they prised away from the FIA, maybe his knowledge has finally come to fruition….. 🤔

    1. @the-orycle-26
      Marcin Budkowski ??
      His words in Jan 2019 — > “After three years of construction, three years of attack are beginning”

      Seems like their attack is aimed towards the rear end of the grid !!

  3. is it me or that’s a lot of rake?

    1. Kimberley Barrass
      17th February 2020, 9:09

      First thing I thought too… It looks steeper than rb last year, and everyone was always saying how they were running lots of rake…

    2. Testing 18″ tyres … but only at the rear!

    3. @fer-no65 That rake caught my eye too. Are they going all-in this year? All those comments about 2021 is our best chance were just distractions?

      B&W footage and pictures, no car at launch. Not your typical midfield start of season.

    4. The first thing I noticed as well.

  4. I know its a monochrome photograph. But i do have the feeling that Renault have gone full yellow this year.
    Undoubtedly the brightest car on track ??!!

    1. It looks practically identical to last year for me (so from head on it looks yellow with black stripes and side on it looks black with yellow stripes).

  5. the new Renault Noire 1.6 hybrid

  6. Side pods look crazy compact.

    1. Man… how could you manage that from the angle and colour scheme of the photo?

  7. @david-beau
    No. they have a heavily undercut sidepods, like that of the 2012 Toro Roso. -STR7. just look at those Renault logo and the RCI letterings, they’re almost upright. And watch their twitter video and pause it where the car appears biggest on the screen. There you’d see a deep dark horizontal undercut, and the white mark, RCI is totally upright. Trust me, that’s like the STR7 sidepods.

  8. Interesting that Ocon is the first to drive it or was it just a matter of them using his car for the photo.

    I don’t see the point in commenting on how any of the cars look. Let’s see how they look on Friday after the first 3 days of testing.

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