Derek Warwick and Patrick Tambay with Renault now

Press, 10 November 1983, Page 15

Derek Warwick and Patrick Tambay with Renault now

The Englishman, Derek Warwick, who has driven for the British Formula I team of Toleman for the last three years, has been confirmed as a member of the two-man Renault team. The other member is the Frenchman, Patrick Tambay, who was with Ferrari until after the South African Grand Prix, about three weeks ago. Warwick is a highly regarded Grand Prix driver, but he did not have much luck with the struggling Toleman team and he felt his career had reached the cross-roads until he signed up with Renault. Apparently when Renault made him the offer of a -drive, Warwick sought equal status with Tambay and the French consented.

Tambay, who might have expected to be team leader, is unperturbed and has said that he is pleased that Renault chose Warwick, a driver who has experience of turbocharged engines and radial-ply racing tyres. As expected, the former No. 1 Renault driver, Alain Prost, has signed up to drive for the Marlboro McLaren team alongside Austrian Niki Lauda in 1984.

According to reports from Europe, Prost and a group of Mark McCormack’s top people met respresentatives of the McLaren team at Marlboro’s European headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, towards the end of October to hammer out a deal.

Although details are still sketchy, it is probable that Prost will enjoy equal status, with Lauda, but it is doubtful if the retainers will be comparable. xtauda signed what was Mputed to be a Ml pillion

contract with Marlboro. That contract expires at the end of next year.

Prost probably found himself in a buyer’s market. As a Marlboro-backed driver, the only drives that could have been open to him were with McLaren, Alfa Romeo or Ferrari.

However, Ferrari had a full complement of drivers and there would have been little appeal for the Frenchman, who got within two points of winning this year’s drivers’ championship, at Alfa Romeo, a team which has- not yet managed to get its act completely together. Andrea de Cesaris, who contested New Zealand’s Formula Pacific international series a few years ago, will remain with the Alfa Romeo team, which is conducted by Euroracing, in 1984. It is probable that the second Alfa driver will be Eddie Cheever, the American who raced for Renault this year. Now that Prost has signed up to drive for Marlboro McLaren, the Ulsterman, John Watson, joins the ranks of the unemployed. Unlike Lauda, Watson does not have a multiseason contract, and his

deal has been renewable each year. Although Lauda has been with the team for two seasons, compared with Watson’s five, the Ulsterman has been much more successful and so it is unlikely that he will be out of work for long. His options could include joining Elio de Angelis at Lotus, because that team has supposedly dropped Nigel Mansell, joining the French concern Ligier, which has made no 1984 driver decisions yet, or filling the Toleman vacancy caused by Warwick’s departure to join Renault. At his traditional annual press conference at the end of October at his Maranello . headquarters, Enzo Ferrari said his team would field 1984 Formula I cars with an entirely new chassis, the C 4, powered by a revised version of the 126 turbo engine. That was news enough for the Formula I world, but the old man’s postscript was surely calculated to set tongues wagging. During the 1983 season, his team had had approaches from such drivers as Emerson Fittipaldi, Nelson Piquet, Keke Rosberg and Niki Lauda, Ferrari confided.