Jonny83 wrote:One thing I've noticed from watching the GP2 races last year, and watching older ones in YouTube, in the first few years of the series, the cars had Renault branding on the engine covers, but looking at the past couple of years, they don't, even if as far as I'm aware they are still using the same Mecachrome-built engines. Have Renault silently pulled the plug on their support of the series (don't remember any news item on this), or is it to allow other manufacturers to be involved as sponsors if not engine suppliers without any branding conflict (I'm thinking Kiesa's "Peugeot" F3/F3000 cars here for example)
I know Renault have their FR3.5 series, but this was on the go in 2005 also, and if I remember rightly GP2's formation was partly a response to that categories' Nissan-branded predecessor kind of overtaking F3000 in the pecking order around 2002-ish (that year they had Wilson, Zonta, Montagny racing in it).
GP2 cars definitely still use Mecachrome engines, but I'm not sure for how much longer. GP3 has changed from Mecachrome to AER with their new chassis, and with GP2 set to get a new chassis for 2014, an engine change might happen too. Not sure why the change was made in GP3.
Of course, Renault/Mecachrome don't actually supply engines for Formula Renault 3.5 either, as the series now uses Zyteks.