Renault Sport Trophy Ran Two Seasons, but the R.S. 01 Raced Until 2023

Renault's own Trophy series lasted just two seasons, closed down by low interest and high costs. The car built for it, the Renault Sport R.S. 01, was still racing in 2023. That gap between a short-lived championship and a long-lived machine is the story of a car that was never based on any road model.

What was the Renault Sport Trophy?

The Renault Sport Trophy was the company's one-make racing series, with every competitor in the same car. It ran in 2015 and 2016, was discontinued after two seasons, and used the R.S. 01 as its host car, replacing the Renault Megane Trophy that had come before it.

In a one-make series the machinery is equal, so results turn on drivers, teams and race strategy. That is why the Trophy handed out several prizes at once: titles in two driver classes, a separate Endurance Trophy, and a teams' championship.

The Trophy ended after two seasons, but the car built for it was still racing in 2023.

How do the 2015 and 2016 Renault Sport Trophy seasons compare?

What happened in the 2015 Renault Sport Trophy?

The first season opened at Spa-Francorchamps on 30 May 2015 and finished at Jerez on 18 October. Its races were staged at World Series by Renault weekends, six rounds in all, each a triple-header. The Elite title went to Andrea Pizzitola. Dario Capitanio won the Prestige class and the Endurance Trophy, sharing his car with David Fumanelli, while Oregon Team took the teams' title. In Elite and Prestige one of the nine results was dropped from each driver's total.

What happened in the 2016 Renault Sport Trophy?

Season two began at the Ciudad del Motor de Aragon on 16 April 2016 and ended at Estoril on 23 October, over six triple-header events as part of the Renault Sport Series meetings. The provisional calendar was announced on 5 September 2015, with Imola, Spielberg, Le Castellet and Estoril all new to the series. Rounds ran alongside the European Le Mans Series, except for Aragon, which shared a bill with the Formula 3.5 V8. The classes were called Pro and Am in 2016, alongside the Endurance Trophy.

Across the two seasons the top-class Pro championship went to Pizzitola and then Pieter Schothorst, the Am championship to Capitanio and then Fabian Schiller, and the teams' title to Oregon Team and then Marc VDS Racing Team. Then the series stopped. It was discontinued in 2016 because teams and viewers showed little interest and keeping it going was expensive.

What is the Renault Sport R.S. 01?

Made by Renault Sport, the performance arm of Renault, the R.S. 01 is a sports racing car created for the Trophy. The SRO Motorsports Group later homologated it for Group GT3, opening the door to GT3 series. In Trophy form it is the most powerful one-make racer Renault has built, and the only one of its race cars not derived from a production model. Its unveiling came at the 2014 Moscow International Automobile Salon.

Who designed the R.S. 01?

The car was drawn at Renault's Guyancourt studio by the Japanese designer Akio Shimizu, under Laurens van den Acker, the design manager, and Eric Diemert, the design director. Diemert said the aim was a car whose design would go beyond the usual process and stand out among Renaults, and that the work resembled designing a concept car. The design took five months.

The result looks like a GT racer: low and aerodynamic, with unbalanced overhangs that come from its architecture and weight distribution. It shares styling cues with the 2010 Renault DeZir concept and the 2012 Alpine A110-50 concept racing car.

What are the R.S. 01 specifications?

Behind the driver sits a 3.8-litre VR38DETT twin-turbocharged 24-valve V6 from the Nissan GT-R, tuned by Nismo and Gibson Technology. It has been modified for dry sump lubrication, which keeps the oil in a separate tank instead of a pan below the engine so the motor can sit low, and re-engineered to run lengthways in a mid-engined layout. With a 6800 rpm redline it produces 550 hp (410 kW; 558 PS) and 443 lb-ft (601 N-m).

Power goes through a seven-speed sequential gearbox by Sadev, with long-lasting, anti-stall ZF clutch plates and a limited-slip differential. An electromagnetic actuator from XAP shifts the gears from paddles on the steering wheel. A Pectel SQ6M system looks after the electronics, including traction control, and Cosworth's ICD Pro handles data. The car tops 186 mph (300 km/h), and at that speed the bodywork produces 1,200 kg (2,646 lb) of downforce. Downforce is air pressing the car onto the road, and here it outweighs the car itself, which weighs 1,145 kg (2,524 lb).

The Dallara carbon fibre monocoque is paired with a steel roll cage and crash boxes, all built to the 2014 FIA LMP1 regulations. Carbon brake discs of 380 mm (15 in) with six-piston calipers come from PFC, backed by a Bosch ABS system. Braid supplied the wheels and Michelin made tyres specifically for the car, sized 30/68 R18 at the front and 31/71 R18 at the rear. Both axles use double wishbone pushrod suspension, with Ohlins dampers adjustable in two ways. Renault places the car's performance somewhere between that of a GT3 machine and a Class One DTM touring car.

How was the R.S. 01 turned into a GT3 car?

Renault revealed its GT3 plans within a week of the 2015 Trophy finale. The R.S. 01 received homologation through the French federation, the FFSA, with SRO involved, and had to be made less extreme to fit the category rules.

The extra weight came from a heavier chassis and new ballast.

Where did the R.S. 01 GT3 car race?

The GT3 R.S. 01 first raced at the 2015 FFSA GT Championship finale at Circuit Paul Ricard, with Boutsen-Ginion Racing and Duqueine Engineering each running a car in the Open class. Both retired. Monlau Competicion also ran one in three rounds of the 2015 Supercar Challenge and won at Spa-Francorchamps.

The 2016 season brought a wider programme. The 24H Series entry list had Duqueine Engineering and V8 Racing in A6-Pro, with Equipe Verschuur and Boutsen-Ginion in A6-Am. The car's first major GT3 victory came at Mugello, where V8 Racing's number 333 took the overall win, driven by Miguel Ramos, Nicky Pastorelli and the Braams pair, Luc and Max; Verschuur and Boutsen-Ginion finished second and third in the Am class. In the International GT Open, a single appearance, V8 Racing scored four class victories: one in Pro at Spa and three in Am at Spa and Paul Ricard, plus four more podiums at Silverstone and the Red Bull Ring. Monlau won two of the four Supercar Challenge races it contested, at Spa and Zolder.

Support shrank after that. In 2017 the number of teams in the 24H Series fell from four to one, the Emirati team GP Extreme, which placed fourth in the A6-Pro standings and thirteenth in A6-Am. In the V de V Endurance Series, Eric van de Vyver joined AB Sport Auto in the GTV1 class, collecting two podiums and three points finishes for third in class. In 2018 GP Extreme was third in A6-Am with its number 27 car, while number 28 retired in the first race and was not classified. AB Sport Auto entered once in the V de V series that year, at Barcelona-Catalunya, and won.

After that the R.S. 01 appeared in one-off outings. In 2019 Equipe Verschuur took one to Barcelona-Catalunya and retired after 88 laps. In 2020 the car took GT class pole at both Monza and Hockenheimring, then retired from each, and in 2021 Verschuur again claimed pole, this time at Mugello, and again did not finish.

Where did the Trophy-spec R.S. 01 race after 2016?

It found a second life in prototype classes and special categories. In the 2017 GT and Prototype Challenge, Equipe Verschuur and AFK Motorsport ran R.S. 01s in the LMP3 class against genuine LMP3 prototypes. Verschuur took the overall win in Race 1 at Zandvoort and retired from Race 2. In 2018 the French team DEMJ took the PFV-2 prototype class win at Barcelona-Catalunya, a round of the 24H GT Series, and in 2023 an R.S. 01 raced in the Caribbean Clash of Champions.

German team mcchip-dkr.com entered the 24 Hours of Nurburgring in 2017 and 2018 in the SP-X class. It failed to finish at the first attempt but came second in class and 23rd overall the next year.

Was there a police version of the R.S. 01?

In early 2016 Renault produced a police interceptor concept of the R.S. 01 with full police livery, neon green stripes and strobe lights. The same month it released a video of the car in action, with World Rally Championship veteran Jean Ragnotti at the wheel, in pursuit of a speeding motorcyclist on a highway, who was then arrested.

The car has also become a video game regular. It appears in Asphalt 8: Airborne, Real Racing 3, Need for Speed: No Limits, Project CARS, The Crew 2, Gran Turismo Sport and Gran Turismo 7, among others.