- Single-seater from the fascinating turbo era

- Perfect history, owned by Renault from new

- Used until 2007 by Erik Comas

- Very interesting recommissioning project

At the end of the 1984 season, the Renault team was rather shaken, following disappointing results and the departures of Gérard Larrousse and then of Michel Têtu for Ligier. It left journalists asking questions, as Gérard Flocon did in L'Automobile Magazine: “Is this a dead end or, on the contrary, should we expect a fresh start?” The answer was given by Max Mangenot, CEO of Renault Sport: “After Kyalami [in 1983, when Prost lost the title to Piquet], we could simply have stopped. That would have been the easiest thing to do, but we chose not to, as we felt that Formula 1 remained an essential objective for Renault.” This was confirmed by Gérard Toth, who took over from Larrousse as the head of Renault Sport: “In 1985, we had to reach the highest level.”

Renault did not therefore throw in the towel, and in January 1985 it took the wraps off its new racing car, the RE 60, assigned to its two drivers, Patrick Tambay and Derek Warwick. With an attractive streamlined shape similar to the RE 50, it had differently placed radiators: these were no longer angled in relation to the ground, but in relation to the centreline of the car, allowing the hot air to escape at the sides without obstructing the flow of air over the rear spoiler. The suspension was completely reworked and, above all, the car had a new engine, the EF15, which Bernard Dudot, speaking of its ultimate version in 1986 (the EF15C), described as “the best of all the Renault F1 turbo engines”. In qualifying trim, the V6 could produce 1000bhp, but to begin with, the cars had to make do with the EF4B engine, an interim version which benefitted from many of the changes made to the EF15.

The 1985 season did not, however, live up to the expectations of the Renault-Elf team and its best results were two third-place finishes for Tambay: on 21 April at the Portuguese Grand Prix, in the rain, and on 9 May at Imola. In the other rounds, the team failed to deliver, whether in testing or in the race itself, the car suffering from inadequate performance and patchy reliability. It was all the more frustrating as the Lotus team, using the same Renault EF15 engine, achieved better results. Ayrton Senna claimed eight pole positions and two victories, in Portugal and Belgium, while his team-mate Elio De Angelis also won one race, at San Marino.

The consequences of these results would be felt well before the end of the year: on 27 August 1985, Georges Besse, Renault’s chairman, announced its withdrawal from competition in Formula 1. It was both a disappointment and a paradox: Renault, the pioneer in using turbocharged engines in F1, pulled out just as all the other teams had adopted the technology introduced by the French manufacturer.

Its sporting vocation nonetheless remained firmly rooted in Renault’s culture, and in 1986 it continued to supply its V6 turbo engines to Lotus, Ligier and Tyrrell, before returning in 1989 with another innovative engine, a naturally-aspirated V10. But that’s another story ...

RE 60-01B presented here is one of the eight RE 60s built by Renault Sport, all of which remained with the manufacturer, except for two bodyshells supplied to Henri Julien, the founder of AGS, who used them to produce two F1 single-seaters. The RE 60B first appeared at the French Grand Prix in July; it was 30kg lighter and featured various modifications, such as lower side pods, different front wheels, a new aero screen, a narrower rear engine cover, differently placed oil coolers and a new transmission.

This car was primarily used for development work, with numerous tests carried out by the team’s drivers, Tambay and Warwick.

Once its racing career was over, the RE 60-01B was delivered by Renault Sport at the end of 1985 to Renault's Public Relations department, and it has remained with the manufacturer ever since. It was used for demonstrations, with its last outing in 2007 during the World Series, driven by Erik Comas. Having suffered on this occasion from a failure of the V6 turbo, which has never been repaired, it has been immobilized since then and still has the same engine today. It is otherwise virtually complete mechanically and has all its ancillaries; it bears Patrick Tambay’s name and racing number 15 and sports the black and yellow colour scheme characteristic of Renault’s racing cars at the time. It would make a rare and valuable basis for a restoration enabling it to take part in historic demonstration events, where it would undoubtedly be one of the stars. Although it failed to reach the very highest level, it remains a racing car with an advanced design, an invaluable witness to one of the most fascinating chapters in the history of Formula 1.