Mecachrome GC37-01

The Mecachrome GC37-01 was the 3.0 litre V10 Formula One engine that Mecachrome supplied for the 1998 season. It was not a new design. Renault had developed the RS9 V10 and then withdrew from Formula One as an engine supplier after 1997, and Mecachrome took over the engines and paid the newly privatised Renault for continued development, which spared Renault arguments with its shareholders over the cost of racing. Joe Saward described the result as the Renault RS9 rebadged and renamed, and the Williams team was told it differed little from the V10 it had finished 1997 with. Williams raced it as the Mecachrome in the FW20, while Benetton raced the same engine under the Playlife name in the B198. Neither team won a race in 1998, and for 1999 the engines were rebadged once more as Supertec.