Mid-season review: Renault

After a hugely disrupted summer and winter of 2009, few would have predicted any sort of return to form for Renault in 2010, but against all odds the Enstone-based team has firmly established itself as the best of the rest behind title challengers Red Bull, McLaren and Ferrari, and has its eye on a return to race and championship wins in the near future.

Having fended off the legal challenges of the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix "Crashgate" controversy in mid-2009, Renault went through an upheaval of owners, management, drivers, sponsors and livery. On the face of it, this was a completely different outfit than came seventh in the 2009 constructors' championships. Renault now owned just 25% of the team, Eric Boullier had replaced the disgraced Flavio Briatore as team principal, Robert Kubica and Vitaly Petrov had replaced Fernando Alonso and Romain Grosjean in the cockpit, title sponsor ING had left as planned and the R30 sported a retro yellow and black livery.