Fernando Alonso didn’t have to wait too long until he won his second title in Formula 1, having achieved success for two years in a row with Renault.
Although the Spaniard didn’t have the quickest car during the 2005 season, Alonso and Renault would make use of the troubles at McLaren and their unreliable MP4-20 designed by Adrian Newey.
Giancarlo Fisichella said they were his favourite years in F1, after they won both the Drivers’ and Constructors’ Championships with the French manufacturer.
The Renault R26 was an evolution of their 2005 chassis, but it featured a component that would become the center of attention midway through the season.
Photo credit should read LLUIS GENE/AFP via Getty ImagesRenault and the mass damper invented by a current top McLaren designer
Ingenuity is where F1 separates itself from a lot of sports. If you give engineers a problem, they will invariably find ways to fix it and exploit it within the rulebook.
F1 introduced new rules in 2005 that required teams to run lower downforce by raising their front wings and altering their diffuser designs, making the cars harder to handle and burn through tyres quicker.
Renault adapted to them by introducing a ‘V-keel’ design and a longer wheelbase to their car, then in 2006 they came up with an ingenious solution with the help of engineer Rob Marshall, who would later go on to success at Red Bull and now McLaren.
Teams often ran under the weight limit these days, which is why ballast could be used to counteract this and bring them up to the minimum. But this also impacted their aero platforms, so to keep it stable Renault devised a solution known as the mass damper.
The mass damper was a free-moving weight suspended within a cylinder inside the nosecone, which would move in opposition to the vertical forces applied to the car. Despite the tradeoff of having a weight effectively near the front of the car rather than the centre, it meant both drivers could ride kerbs more harshly and maintain a stable aero platform.
It also suited the driving style of Alonso, who relies on aggressive steering inputs to induce understeer, carrying more speed into a corner and achieving a strong exit. The driver and car combination handed Renault significant lap time gains as they could customise the amount of ballast used at each track, and would later add a similar system to the rear of the car.
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Renault and Michelin became an unstoppable force in 2006
The system helped Renault massively during this period of F1 when there were grooved tyres and two suppliers, Michelin and Bridgestone.
Renault used Michelin tyres, which were more susceptible to the tread blocks moving when under load through the corners. The mass damper helped counteract that, with lap time gains of around three tenths of a second reported.
After there was a rush of teams attempting to copy the system, the FIA introduced a catch-all regulation which outlawed movable aerodynamic devices. By the 14th round of the season, Renault had to take it off their car, but Alonso still managed to get within a tenth of the lap times produced by title rival Michael Schumacher.
Alonso went on to secure the title in 2006 with 13 points to spare on Schumacher, who retired at the end of the season for the first time with Ferrari.
It would also be the last years of success before a rocky few years at Team Enstone, after the Oxfordshire-based team went under various ownerships between 2010 and 2016.