Eric Boullier, Team Principal And Managing Director

[Mark H]

Team Principal Eric Boullier has over a decade’s experience in top-line motorsport. Having

graduated in 1999, he quickly put his engineering skills to good use as he joined DAMS as a

race engineer to work on their F3000 and Le Mans programmes. By 2002 he was working for

Racing Engineering as Chief Engineer, helping the team win the World Series by Renault. A

move to management soon followed as Eric returned to DAMS in 2003 both as Managing and

Technical Director to oversee the team’s activities in various categories including GP2. In

2007 he was appointed as Team Principal for A1GP Team France and led the squad to the

series title in 2008. At the start of the 2010 season, he was appointed Team Principal of the

Renault F1 Team and also took on the role of Managing Director during the season. For

2011, he heads up Lotus Renault GP determined to build on the momentum of a promising

2010 campaign.

Key details:

Date of Birth: 9 November 1973

Place of Birth: Laval

Nationality: French

Key dates:

1999 Graduates with diploma from Institut Polytechnique des Sciences Avancées

1999 - 2001 Race Engineer, Team DAMS (F3000 and Le Mans)

2002 Chief Engineer, Racing Engineering (World Series by Renault)

2003 - 2009 Managing and Technical Director, Team DAMS (GP2, GP2 Asia)

2007 - 2009 Team Principal, A1GP Team France

2009 CEO, Gravity Sport Management

2010 Team Principal and Managing Director of Renault F1 Team

2011 Team Principal and Managing Director of Lotus Renault GP

Eric in 30 seconds

What’s the best looking F1 car ever?

I liked the look of the cars when the aero rules were more open and allowed lots of additions

to the bodywork. The 2005 Renault looked amazing, as did the 2007 Mclaren.

Best car you’ve ever worked on?

I enjoyed engineering the Cadillac works car at Le Mans. We had the might of a manufacturer

behind us and there was a lot of freedom to help with the design of the car.

Best racing memory?

My first win. It was 2002 in Valencia when I was engineering Frank Montagny in the World

Series. But I’m sure that my first win in Formula 1 will feel even more special…

Favourite track?

I have to say Suzuka because it has everything: quick corners, technical sections and an

incredible first sector. Seeing the cars on the limit there is always special.

Eric Boullier: “A great deal to be excited about”

The Team Principal and Managing Director pays tribute to the efforts behind the scenes over

the winter and looks ahead to the challenge facing the team in 2011.

Eric, the start of the 2011 season is just over a month away. How excited are you about

the year ahead?

I think there is a great deal to be excited about this year, especially as we begin an important

new era for this team. 2010 was a useful year; a time to rebuild and prepare for the future, but

at the same time everybody in the team put in an amazing amount of effort and we saw the

results of that on the racetrack. Now, with the arrival of a long-term partner in Group Lotus,

we have the financial stability to build on these strong foundations and ensure a very

competitive future. That is incredibly motivating for everybody in the team and gives us all the

belief that we can continue to compete at the sharp end of the grid with the strongest teams in

the sport. Over the last twelve months, we have all worked so hard to prepare for 2011 and

I’m incredibly proud of what we have achieved and looking forward to getting the season

underway.

The winter months building the new car are always some of the busiest of the year –

how has the factory handled the creation of the R31?

In fact, Formula 1 never stops. With the R31, work started before the R30 had even done a

single race. In 2010 we achieved a very high rate of development and the car that finished the

season was two seconds per lap quicker than the car we had at the first race. During the

winter, that same determined approach to the workload has continued, which is a testament

to the spirit and commitment of the people we have in this team. Yes, the workload is huge at

this time of year, but if we keep our heads down and maximise the winter test sessions, I’m

pretty sure we will have a strong start to 2011.

Can the team repeat last year’s high development pace in 2011?

The plan is to take exactly the same approach to development this year, although our

expectation is to start the season in a much stronger position. That means we will have to be

even more creative and will look to investigate some new technical areas that we have not

examined before. But technical innovation isn’t the only key to performance and over the last

12 months we have reviewed all our internal processes and left no stone unturned. Today we

can say that our overall efficiency has improved by 15%.

The team is fielding an unchanged driver line-up. How important is that stability for

taking the team forward?

Stability is important in any industry and especially in the very fast-moving Formula 1

environment, which is intensively competitive on every level. Having stability in our drivers is

one of the key elements in bringing this team back to full competitiveness. It will allow us to

capitalise on what we learned last year. The new management, the drivers, the engineers and

mechanics have all been working together for a year now and have spent that time

understanding each other. Now is the time when we can capitalise on that bond and team

spirit, which will only make us stronger.

What do you think Robert and Vitaly are capable of achieving in 2011?

Our driver line-up is still a mixture of talent, experience and youth. Robert is clearly one of our

strongest assets and we know we can rely on his speed, commitment and dedication for the

long term. As for Vitaly, he showed us at the end of last year that he understands what we

expect of him in 2011 and he was ready to commit to this. With a year’s experience behind

him, he will be able to approach the new season with more confidence and is ready to help

the team raise its game. We took the risk of investing in him last year and I’m sure we will see

the benefit of that this year.

Are you confident the team can take a significant step forward and challenge for wins

in 2011?

We live to race and our goal is to win. It’s the core of our philosophy. All the hard work over

the last twelve months has been focussed on delivering a big improvement for 2011, and that

means we should be more competitive than last year. Will we be stronger than our

competitors? Hard to say, but based on the efforts of everybody here, I feel we deserve it.

 

This post has been promoted to an article