Ghosn said Renault won't get "big-name drivers"

Renault CEO Carlos Ghosn expresses his team’s desire to win in F1 without the biggest budget.

Renault boss Cyril Abiteboul recently said that his team need more money in order to compete with the best, such as Ferrari, Mercedes and Red Bull.

The target at the moment is to slowly catch up with the top three over the next couple of seasons, but Ghosn said it is possible to beat them eventually without spending “hundreds of millions of euros”.

“We are preparing for our return to the top of the podium by 2020,” Ghosn told La Presse.

“The goal is to win under responsible economic conditions.”

There has been speculation recently that Adrian Newey could be on his way to Renault, but many think they need a big-name driver.

“Of course, if there was no budget, we would hire the best drivers in the world,” Ghosn said.

“But we’re not going to be the richest team. We have proven in the past that we can win while not being the ones who spend the most money or have the best drivers.”

Ghosn said he is happy with Renault’s current drivers, Nico Hulkenberg and Carlos Sainz, but did say they could look for a driver “who draws attention to our main markets”.

“Therefore a French driver would be fine, a Russian driver would be fine, a Chinese driver would be extraordinary because we would have the attention of 1.3 billion consumers.

“But you have to find the driver to win so it’s always a difficult equation,” Ghosn added.