You don’t have to be old to be an icon…
The R25 proves this rule. The last Championship winner in the mighty V10 era, the Renault R25 raced in the 2005 season. Having abandoned development of the R24 partway through the 2004 season, Renault had a head start on developing the R25.
Driven by a bright young talent in Fernando Alonso and ‘Mr Experience’, Giancarlo Fisichella, the 2005 looked promising. And Renault needed it to be. With 2 wins in 3 seasons, they had something to prove.
And boy did they prove it.
At the season opener in Australia, Fisichella took pole position and then subsequently the race win. Alonso came in second for an emphatic one-two.
This was just the start, Alonso went on to take the next three victories. It would have been an even better start, had Fisichella not retired from the same three races.
Even though the R25 wasn’t the fastest car on the grid (that accolade went to McLaren and their MP4-20) it was reliable. The R25 only finished completely out of the points twice. When you bear in mind one of these races was the famed US Grand Prix, when all Michelin teams retired after the warm up lap due to a disagrement over tyre safety, this is quite a good record.
Fernando Alonso went on to take the Drivers Championship with Renault taking the Constructors Championship.
The R25 was so good, many elements of it went into the R26, which also won Alonso the 2006 Drivers Championship and Renault the Constructors Championship, however it took them until the final race to secure both.
Love this article mate! So much so I’ve put it in the fancy slideshow on the homepage
. This car is undoubtedly a modern Formula 1 icon, it looks so great and that livery is magnificent.
Great article scott and I agree with Jack when he says it was magnificent
Beautifully written-matches the car!
It was a cracking car. The Mclaren was undoubtedly quicker but as was shown last year, reliability and speed wins. Alonso made some mistakes that year too so it really reflected how good the car was that he won at Brazil with still one round to go despite that.