The Renault RS01 was the first Formula One car to be powered by a turbocharged engine. It was also the first to use radial tyres, which were provided by Michelin. The RS01 was the first car designed by the newly formed Renault Sport division, formed by merging the Alpine and Gordini competition departments, hence the name.
Development
During the latter half of the 1970s, Team Lotus had introduced ground effects with the Lotus 78, while Tyrrell had developed the six-wheeled Tyrrell P34. Renault continued to innovate with their car, drawing on the knowledge gained from their turbocharged 2.0-litre V6 engine used in Sports car racing which culminated in finishing second at the 1977 24 Hours of Le Mans and winning in 1978, proving that Renault's turbocharged engines could not only be powerful, but reliable.
The rules of F1 at the time permitted 3.0 litre naturally-aspirated engines, with a clause for a 1.5 litre supercharged or turbocharged engine. None of the teams had pursued this avenue, and stuck to Ford Cosworth DFV engines, whilst Ferrari, Matra and Alfa Romeo concentrated on developing Flat-12 engines for their cars and for their customer teams Ligier and Brabham. Leading French car manufacturer Renault decided to develop a 1.5 litre turbocharged engine, and a car to accompany the powerplant. Renault depended on lessons learned from the Alpine A500[fr], a never-raced, turbocharged F1 car developed in 1975 and 1976 as a rolling laboratory for the new engine technology. The A500 had been developed by André de Cortanze and André Renut from an F2 chassis; the engine team visited the US to glean insights from the use of turbocharging in USACSprint car racing. The A500 had even more pronounced reliability and turbo lag problems than did the RS01, which did receive an entirely new from the ground up chassis layout.
Designed by Cortanze and Jean-Pierre Jabouille, it first appeared at the 1977 British Grand Prix – becoming the first car with forced induction to compete in a Formula One race since the BRM Type 15 in 1951. The resulting RS01 was cumbersome in appearance and also overweight, but it was nothing more than an experimental test car at this stage. Jabouille, who was also the team's sole driver, worked hard to develop it. The engine block was made in cast iron to withstand the pressures of turbocharging, whilst the chassis itself was kept as uncomplicated as possible to not stand in the way of engine development. The initial cars featured a single turbocharger and mechanical fuel injection from Kugelfischer.
The chassis was built up from steel plates and featured a typical, double A-arm front suspension with inboard-mounted coil springs (similar to that of the A500) and a rear four-link suspension with lower parallel arms. Renault was also forced to depend on British manufacturers: the brakes came from Lockheed and the gearbox was a Hewland FGA400-6. The introductory bodyshape was reminiscent of the Tyrrell P34, with a wide, rounded front spoiler that looked more sportscarlike than open-wheeled races and with a similar cockpit enclosure as well. The look of the car was frequently revised as experience was gained, however, and was entirely different by the time the RS01 was replaced.
Race history
The RS01 was chronically unreliable, earning the nickname 'the yellow teapot' from rival teams (as it tended to blow up fairly regularly, usually in a cloud of white smoke), but Jabouille and the team pressed on throughout the rest of 1977 and 1978 until scoring the car's first points, a fourth place at the 1978 United States Grand Prix at Watkins Glen. The car had been developed so much it barely resembled the chunky machine that it had been when it first appeared, and the team's performance picked up throughout the season. Reliability improved, as the huge turbo lag had been overcome with the use of twin turbochargers.
The RS01 started the 1979 season for the team, with Jabouille scoring the first pole position for a turbo car at the South African Grand Prix at Kyalami, a circuit located at high altitude where the thinner air saw the turbos operating at their maximum while the naturally aspirated cars such as the flat 12Ferrari and Alfa Romeos, and the V8Cosworth DFV, actually lost approximately 20% of their power compared to at sea level.[citation needed]
Within three years most of the other teams would begin adopting turbochargers for themselves, with Ferrari, Alfa, and other manufacturers such as BMW, Honda and Porsche all supplying turbocharged engines.
Complete Formula One results
(key) (results in bold indicate pole position; results in italics indicate fastest lap)
Jean-Pierre Jabouille
