Simon Rennie | |
|---|---|
| Born | (1980-04-29)29 April 1980 (age 45) Northallerton, England |
| Occupation | Race engineer |
| Known for | Formula One; (Renault F1,Red Bull Racing) |
Simon Rennie (born 29 April 1980) is an Englishmotor racing engineer. He currently is the Group Leader of Simulation Engineering atRed Bull Racing.[1]
Rennie was born inNorthallerton, North Yorkshire, and began working for theRenault F1 Team in2004.2005 saw him acting as the Data Engineer for the winner of the2005World Driver's Championship, Spanish driverFernando Alonso. Alonso and Renault retained the titles they won in 2005 in the2006 season.
For the2007 season Rennie was placed in the same role, this time with Finnish driverHeikki Kovalainen, who arrived at Renault after the departure of Alonso.[2]
In2008, Rennie remained as a data engineer at Renault. He worked alongside the returning Alonso,[3] who came back to the team after placing 2nd atMcLaren. Alonso and Renault won back-to-back victories in the now infamousSingapore race and inJapan two weeks later.
The2009 season, saw Rennie promoted to race engineer to Fernando Alonso. The team failed to reach the race winning success of the previous year. Renault's year was dominated by theCrashgate scandal, where they were accused, and found guilty, of fixing the race in Singapore the previous season.
For the second successive season, he remained in his position in the Renault F1 team for the2010 season, who had been going through major changes in leadership, personnel and sponsorship. He acted as the race engineer for Polish driverRobert Kubica.[4]
Rennie would have acted as race engineer to Kubica in the2011 Formula One season, for the newly renamed Renault team, Lotus Renault F1, had it not been for a Rallying incident in Italy,[5] one month before the season opener inBahrain, which resulted in Kubica being sidelined with multiple fractures and a partially severed right hand. Rennie was race engineer to German driverNick Heidfeld, who was acting as the replacement for Kubica during his recovery, for the 2011 season.
During2012, he was one of two race engineers forKimi Räikkönen. The other of Räikkönen's engineers wasMark Slade. During theAbu Dhabi Grand Prix, Rennie told Räikkönen on the team radio about the advantage Räikkönen had over second-placed Fernando Alonso in theFerrari and he would keep him updated on the Spaniard's pace. The Finn responded on the radio by saying "Leave me alone, I know what to do". The message has received wide media coverage and was well received by the fans. Lotus team principalEric Boullier said the message "has become a Formula One classic".
For the2013 season Rennie joined the defending Drivers' and Constructor's championsRed Bull Racing to replaceMark Webber's long time race engineer Ciaron Pilbeam while Pilbeam took over as chief engineer for Räikkönen at Lotus for 2013, their roles effectively replacing each other. After Webber's retirement, Rennie went on to work with Daniel Ricciardo in 2014. In 2019, Rennie moved to a factory role within the Red Bull team, considered to be a factor in Ricciardo's departure from the team that year.[6] He was replaced as race engineer byMike Lugg.[7]
In 2020, Rennie returned to trackside action at Red Bull to becomeAlexander Albon's race engineer, replacing Lugg. Lugg was replaced on Albon's demand because he wanted "a more experienced engineer".[8]
In 2021, Rennie stepped aside as Race Engineer, withHugh Bird taking over as Race Engineer for Albon's replacement Sergio Pérez.[9]
In 2025, Rennie returned twice for trackside action during theAustrian Grand Prix andBelgian Grand Prix. In both cases, he stepped in asMax Verstappen's race engineer, replacingGianpiero Lambiase for the weekends, he also took on Lambiase's responsibilities as Head of Racing due to Lambiase's absence for personal reasons in both instances.[10][11][12][13][14][15]
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
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