Two weeks ago I wrote a small article dedicated to my vision of the blue and orange R(enault)F1 period. This week I’m digging even deeper into the origins of Renault F1 team blog with a BIG help from… RF1 PP! Yes, the mysterious Renault F1 Paddock Pass who was in charge of the blog in 2006-2007 and whose real identity can’t be revealed for obvious reasons (it would spoil the fun, just like with The Stig). Over to you now, RF1… and thank you very much for your cooperation.
The concept started in 2006 as a way of improving fan interaction and was, to my knowledge, the first of its kind. A couple of us cooked it up over the winter and made it happen for that year’s web project.
Three great memories of its power stick out for me:
1) I did a post on May 1st remembering Senna and asking fans to share their own memories. One guy wrote in, explaining how he had been under shelling in Sarajevo and heard the news on a transistor radio. That really made me think about the power of the blog and internet to bring people with a shared passion together, from every corner of the world.
2) Suzuka 2006, when everybody was convinced the championship was lost and I had to write a pretty intense post on the Sunday morning reminding them that today was a new day, anything could happen and usually did. And it did.
3) A colleague and a journo teaming up to wind me up on the site, just because I took it so seriously. We wouldn’t get away with that now!
Overall memories of the period? Immense fun; tricky dealing with a community where passion outweighs reason and information; frustrating trying to make people understand that we weren’t lying, and that we had information whereas they had only unfounded rumours; and a huge word count at the end of the year! Hopefully it was fun for the fans, too, and helped them to get an insight into the measured way a team has to approach good and bad performances – compared to the emotional roller coaster on which spectators almost inevitably live.
iberianmph.com 
Thank you Iberian for this article.
It was a very good period.
A period where we were, thanks to RF1PP, almost inside the team.
“He” was always there to respond to our questions, to explain the team, the rules, the strategies, the technologies,… on the blog or the chats.
NB : in your previous article (part 1), you thanks BL (of course) and WH. But don’t forget MH who was always here too…
Glad you like the article, Prost.
I mentioned the guys I’ve met personally but that was at a later stage in 2009-2010. I know they had this RF1 “club” thing – can’t remember the exact name – in 2006 and 2007 but I wasn’t directly involved back then. I was only posting comments, paddock visits started a bit later for me.
Best regards to MH then, the fans know their heroes…
The blog in 2006-2007 was really a very cool place to be, lot’s of arguments and crazy comments but it was new and fresh and there was real team-fan interaction going on. In many ways I prefer it to Twitter and Facebook. Let’s see if LRGP blog can become a classic.
Nice text Cyril, thanks.
Those guys did a far better job then the new crew (so far at least)
I really hope the interaction gets back, it is a bit lame now.
The text came from RF1 PP – all credit must go in that direction and it’s a great text by all accounts. I merely came up with the idea of producing a blog post on RF1’s golden years, just to make sure it’s not forgotten now that the people who started the blog are working for various different teams and most bloggers from that period have moved on with their lives.
I think LRGP blog can and will do better, let’s see what happens.