SEPTEMBER 1, 2004

Nielsen stays at Renault

Renault F1 sporting director Steve Nielsen has agreed terms for a new contract with the team which will take him to the end of 2006. The 40-year-old has been involved in team management for more than 10 years when he became team manager of Tyrrell. he stayed with the team until it closed in 1998 and then moved to Honda Racing Developments as team manager. When that operation was suspended Nielsen joined Arrows but has been sporting director at Renault since the end of 2000.

Renault is slightly destabilised at the moment because of the departure of designer Mark Smith and fears that the team put together by Mike Gascoyne may start to come apart. Things have not been helped by strong rumours that the team's executives Patrick Faure and Flavio Briatore will be leaving in the next year because of the arrival of a new Renault chairman in the Spring of 2005.