Benetton warned that not too much should be expected of them in 2001, but no-one expected them to have such a dire time of it as they did at the beginning of the year.

For the first half of the season, Giancarlo Fisichella and Jenson Button were mired at the back of the grid with a car that was not very good and an engine that was even worse than that.

The biggest problem was the engine. Everyone expects Renault to get it right eventually - they always have in the past, after all. But the radical 110-degree vee-angled V10 was right at the beginning of its development curve - and Renault admitted during the season that it probably made its debut a year too early.

The new engine was hideously under-powered, which does not help at the best of times, but is made even worse when your car is also poor.

Progress was made, though, and quite dramatically. The car was improved bit by bit, as technical director Mike Gascoyne promised it would be, and the engine came on, too.

The transformation was dramatic - Giancarlo Fisichella even finished on the rostrum at Spa, and qualified in the top six at Suzuka, both of them circuits where a good chassis and a strong engines are crucial.

On that evidence, Renault, as the team will be re-named in 2002, must be favourite among the also-rans to challenge the hegemony of Ferrari, McLaren and Williams in the future.