People

Patrick Faure

Born in Perigueux in the Dordogne department, Faure was the son of the mayor of the city of Cahors who became a minister in several French governments in the 1950s. Patrick grew up in Paris, attended the well known Lycee Louis le Grand and then studied law and politics at the Institute of Political Studies before winning in a place at France's most famous business school, the Ecole Nationale d'Administration. He graduated in 1972 and served three years as a bureaucrat with the Caisse des Depots et Consignations. In 1975 he joined the precision engineering company Labinal and became chairman of another firm Gelbon.He was then recruited by Renault as its regional manager in Toulouse. After a year he put in charge of Renault's sales department and then in 1982 sent to Vienna as head of Renault Austria. A year later he took over Renault's British operations for 12 months before being posted back to Paris to head Renaults Public Affairs department. In January 1986 he became a member of the Renault board of directors and three months later was made the boss of Renault Sport. It was a difficult time for the company and at the end of that year Faure took the decision to withdraw Renault from Grand Prix racing. The turbo engines were being phased out and plans were being laid for a new 3.5-liter normally-aspirated formula. Faure decided that Renault Sport's engine designer Bernard Dudot should begin research work for a new engine so that when Renault was ready to come back to F1, the company would not have fallen behind in the technology race. Dudot designed the Renault V10 and in 1989 Faure sent his engineers back into Grand Prix racing. As history now relates, Dudot's V10 designs were soon competitive and Renault engines won a string of World titles in the 1990s with Williams and Benetton.He remains the chairman of Renault Sport .