If Grosjean goes, then Jean Eric Vergne is a contender for the Renault seat, as he has great support from Renault’s Alain Prost, while Sergio Perez has also held off signing his new deal with Force India to assess the situation. Perhaps this latest news has made it more likely he will stay put. Performance-wise, it is hard to judge whether the new Renault team or the Mercedes-powered Force India team will be better placed in 2016. Much depends on how much Renault has invested in its 2016 engine development programme as all the uncertainty has swirled around its continued involvement in F1, with the divorce from Red Bull and Toro Rosso. Renault has not produced any development engines this season and its allocation of ‘tokens’ remains untouched.