Looks like a volte-face from some of the info I had about Renault. Johns post above does have a ring of truth after all.
This from the telegraph:
Renault to decide on F1 future 'by end of year'
French team Renault will decide by the end of the year whether to stay in Formula One following Toyota's exit from the sport.
By Telegraph staff
Published: 3:25PM GMT 05 Nov 2009
Out manoeuvre: Renault will deicde on whether to follow Toyota out of F1 by the end of the year Photo: EPA
"You will have to be patient," Renault chief executive Carlos Ghosn told reporters. "We will make an announcement on our participation in F1 before the end of the year."
Sole tyre supplier Bridgestone has also said it will leave at the end of 2010.
Renault won the 2005 and 2006 championships with Fernando Alonso but the Spaniard has now left for rivals Ferrari. Title sponsor ING has also departed, leaving a big hole in its budget.
While any Renault announcement has been put off it is entirely possible that it will decide to quit a sport in which it had its least competitive season since 2001, one in which it was drawn into the hugely damaging race-fixing scandal that saw team principal Flavio Briatore and director of engineering Pat Symonds banned from the sport.
The Renault team also received a ban, suspended for two years, as punishment.
However, the FIA’s leniency on that occasion is believed to have been partly down to assurances from Renault that it would stay in the sport. They recently signed Robert Kubica to replace lead driver Fernando Alonso, strongly indicating they will compete in 2010.
It is understood that the French manufacturer may try to sell the team in the manner that Honda did to Ross Brawn last winter. A deal with Briatore had been mooted before the Italian was banned and no doubt there would be other interested buyers.