MARCH 13, 2006

Renault names new F1 boss

Renault has named Alain Dassas as the replacement for Patrick Faure as president of the Renault F1 Team. Faure will retire from the company within a month, rather faster than has been expected. Dassas is currently Renault's Senior Vice President of Financial Operations and member of the company's Management Committee. Oddly, Dassas is the same age as Faure and a finance man. A banker and financial analyst with Chase Manhattan, he joined Renault in 1983 as head of its financial office in New York. Three years later he became head of the company's in-house bank, known as the Societe Financiere et Fonciere and by 1997 was Vice President, Financial Operations. In April 2001 he was named Senior Vice President of Finance and he became a board member in January 2003.