Rennie would have acted as race engineer to Kubica in the Formula One season, for the newly renamed Renault team, Lotus Renault F1, had it not been for a Rallying incident in Italy, one month before the season opener in Bahrain, which resulted in Kubica being sidelined with multiple fractures and a partially severed right hand. Rennie was race engineer to German driver Nick Heidfeld, who was acting as the replacement for Kubica during his recovery, for the 2011 season.