Renault had dominated Formula One through much of the 1990s, providing works engine supply to Williams and Benetton and winning six consecutive Constructors' Championships between 1992 and 1997, along with five Drivers' titles. When Renault announced its withdrawal from the sport after 1997, the engines did not disappear immediately. Mecachrome, which had been responsible for assembling and preparing customer Renault units throughout the decade, made arrangements to continue supplying the engines under their own name to Williams and Benetton in 1998, with Benetton branding theirs as Playlife.
In May 1998, Super Performance Competition Engineering signed an exclusive distribution agreement with Mecachrome to begin with the 1999 season. The engines were purchased from Mecachrome and rebadged as Supertec, a commercial rebranding that allowed the unit to be presented as a distinct product while the underlying engineering remained Mecachrome-built on Renault-designed architecture.
The FB01 was based on the Renault RS9, a 3.0-litre naturally aspirated V10 that had been one of the leading engines in Formula One during the 1997 season. While the underlying design was competitive by 1997 standards, the unit had not been significantly developed after Renault's withdrawal from their works programme. By 1999 and 2000, the teams using Supertec power found themselves at a performance and development disadvantage relative to the current works suppliers — principally Ferrari, Mercedes, and the returning Ford — whose engines had been substantially updated.
Three teams ran Supertec-badged engines in 1999. Williams used the FB01 in the FW21, with drivers Ralf Schumacher and Alessandro Zanardi. Schumacher had a productive season, scoring three podium finishes and finishing sixth in the Drivers' Championship with 35 points, all of which were scored by Schumacher as Zanardi failed to score a single point. Williams finished fifth in the Constructors' Championship, their worst season since 1990, and it was described as the team's last season running a Renault-derived engine until a works Renault deal was agreed for a later car. British American Racing ran the FB01 in the BAR 01 for Jacques Villeneuve and Ricardo Zonta, but the season was disastrous for the new team — reliability problems prevented Villeneuve from finishing any of his first eleven races, and the team ended last in the Constructors' Championship with no points. Benetton continued to badge their Supertec-supplied engines as Playlife in the B199, consistent with their practice from 1998. The B199 scored 16 points, with Giancarlo Fisichella achieving a second-place finish at the Canadian Grand Prix as the team's best result.
For 2000, the customer list contracted. Williams moved to a new works deal with BMW, leaving Supertec without their most high-profile customer. Benetton continued with the Playlife-badged supply in the B200, and Arrows also ran Supertec units. Results remained modest across both teams. The Benetton B200 finished the season ninth in the Constructors' Championship, their worst position since the team's debut year. Arrows scored one championship point across the entire season.
After the 2000 season, Supertec collapsed due to financial problems. Renault Sport F1 subsequently bought back Supertec's assets in 2001, clearing the way for Renault's formal return to the sport as a constructor — they purchased the Benetton team and rebranded it as Renault F1 for the 2002 season.
The Supertec programme demonstrated the limited commercial and competitive life available to rebadged customer engines once their design fell behind current development. While the FB01 had been genuinely competitive in its Renault RS9 form during 1997, two further seasons of essentially frozen development left it increasingly outclassed, and the three teams that ran it in 1999 and 2000 were unable to challenge the front-running works-backed operations.