JUNE 21, 2006

On the way to Woking

There have been rumours for some weeks that Renault is being targeted by other teams to pick up good technical staff. McLaren has lost a number of staff in recent months and the team is now recruiting to put together a team to work with Fernando Alonso and the word on the street is that McLaren has been busy luring away members of the team at Enstone.

One of Renault's top aerodynamicists is France's Nicolas Hennel de Beaupreau, who has worked in F1 since 1997, initially with the old Benetton team and then in 2000 with Ferrari, as one of the team that Ross Brawn took with him to Italy. Hennel de Beaupreau returned to Britain in 2003 to work with Renault and has been an important player in the team's success.

The word is that he will soon move to McLaren.