JUNE 28, 2005

Renault management changes

Carlos Ghosn, the new boss of Automobiles Renault, has spent the last three months looking at the way the company operates and deciding how to move forward.

Carlos Ghosn, the new boss of Automobiles Renault, has spent the last three months looking at the way the company operates and deciding how to move forward. The company has now announced new management changes which mean that only one of the six members of the executive council at the start of last year is still in place. All the others have been replaced. The last to go is veteran Georges Douin, who is to be replaced by Ghosn's former number two at Nissan, Patrick Pelata, an executive who made a name for himself in the 1990s as the head of product development, notably with the Twingo. Pelata will be in charge of a number of departments, including the Renault Sport Technologies Division, which commercialises sporting developments. This is separate from the F1 programme which still comes under Patrick Faure, although he was one of the four executives to leave the board in December last year.

The change could be of great significance as the board is completely different to the one that voted for Renault's factory involvement in F1. Ghosn says that he is no fan of motorsport unless it serves a purpose and insists that he will not continue with an unsuccessful F1 programme.

Fortunately at the moment the Renault F1 team is leading the World Championship.