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Why Renault's survivor wasn't part of Alpine's plans

Even the most skilled and ambitious political operators can come a cropper when organisations change. Stuart Codling reflects on the departure from Renault of Cyril Abiteboul.

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It's said that all political careers end in failure. Thrusting young people with ambition align themselves with the most powerful and influential stars in their firmament, only to suffer the consequences when those stars eventually diminish or blink out.

So farewell, then, Cyril Abiteboul - or Cyril Irritable, as one rival team principal nicknamed him - whose departure from Renault was marked by the classically understated medium of a tersely worded press release in early January, a week before the company provided a first peek at how its newly rebranded Alpine F1 team might look.

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