A Brief History:
In 1994, following the success of the initial Renault touring car program with the Renault 19, the new Laguna was launched. The Renault Sport and MCT teams worked together over the winter developing the new car. Under the code designation of “Project X52” testing began in France behind closed doors, the driver feedback was exciting. This year’s championship was to be the most contended season ever, with 10 manufacturers, ex F1 drivers a no holes barred contest looked immanent. The addition of Alfa Romeo added yet more pressure and following some exciting pre-season testing the MCT Renault works effort was looking on the pace. The same driver line up was maintained and with the experience of the previous year both Tim and Alain were contenders. Unfortunately, the aero package we had completed all pre-season testing with was not fully homologated and at our first race, actually in the garage, we had to remove the whole lot setting us back tremendously. Alfa Romeo had its own highly publicised aero issues, but these were mitigated, and they had a huge early season advantage on the rest of the field. Our aero package was finally approved mid-season and podiums became wins.
There were 4 cars planned: chassis 1 was to be the French based test car, Chassis 2 was the Tim Harvey race car, Chassis 3 was Alain Menus race car, and the final chassis was to be a UK development car. This was a similar set up to the previous year, although MCT now had a dedicated UK development team to assist progress.
| Chassis 1 | This chassis was the French based test car. This car was rebuilt by MCT for the Touring Car World Cup held at Donnington Park at the end of 1994. The guest driver was the late David Leslie, and this car was destroyed at this event. |
| Chassis 2 | This was the first UK built race car which was designated to Tim Harvey. This car achieved many podiums during the season and was supplied to Williams GP when they took over the program. Williams used this as a pre-season development car for the 1995 season. |
| Chassis 3 | This chassis was Alain Menu`s race car. This car was the championship contender winning the Oulton Park round, however, during a Donnington TOCA test day, Tim Harvey had a serious accident, and the car was destroyed. Alain decided to have the development car, chassis 4, as his replacement for the rest of the season. |
| Chassis 4 | This initially was the UK MCT development car, however, following the TOCA accident, Alain Menu completed the season in this car finishing runner up to the Alfa Romeo of Gabriele Tarquini. This car won the Knockhill round together with the most podiums achieved in the second part of the season. |
At the end of the 1994 season, the 3 race cars (chassis 1, 2 & 4) were supplied to Williams GP once they took over Renaults challenge for the next years. Only chassis 2 and 4 were used as pre-season development cars as chassis 1 was scrapped. Eventually Alain Menu`s chassis 4 car arrived at DC Cook Motorsport. This car was finally acquired by the Maple Leaf Garage in Daventry, unbelievably less than 500m from MCT`s factory.
The Journey Home:
MCT had been based in Daventry for over 10 years having moved from Silverstone. A member of staff, who was extremely knowledgeable on the BTCC era, informed us that our Laguna race car was in the garage at the bottom of our road. Given that this was so unlikely that the only surviving MCT Laguna had turned up 500m from our factory, we were understandably sceptical. Our member of staff persisted and after 6 months we finally went to investigate. Think of our disbelief to find that it was exactly our last surviving race car from 1994. A full year of badgering the then owner that this must be divine providence and that she is meant to return to us at MCT, finally he relented, and we purchased her. Time passed and our plan to restore her languished, however we did find an original manifold from our Sodemo race engine along with a few other useful parts. Interestingly this did spur us on to see if we could find the last Renault 19 that we had heard rumours, the hunt began for our sentimental stable mate for the Laguna. Having found and successfully restored our Renault 19, Leggero Forte, Prism Motorsport and MCT re-joined forces to return Alaina Menu`s Renault Laguna chassis 4 to join the action once again.
