Renault engine performance “unacceptable” – Horner

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In the round-up: Red Bull team principal Christian Horner describes his cars’ Renault engines as “unacceptable”.

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Red Bull say Renault performance unacceptable (Reuters)

“The reliability is unacceptable. The performance is unacceptable. There needs to be change at Renault.”

Williams deny throwing away victory (BBC)

“There’s a chance, if we’d done what Nico did, we wouldn’t have got to the end. Tyre wear was that close. I’m reasonably happy with what we did.”

Alonso: Massa playing with me (Sky)

“It’s been five years like this. There is always satisfaction that everyone believes you are always performing at your best. There’s the respect from drivers, team principals and fans for the job that you do. But I prefer to have no respect and to win more trophies.”

‘Impossible’ to beat Merc in ’14 – Alonso (ESPN)

“They seemed to use the maximum power for only a few laps in the race and they have such an advantage that they can play with it a little bit. When I was with Massa at the end and close, he pulled away.”

Toro Rosso STR9 – new front wing (F1)

“Toro Rosso introduced a new front wing in Austria, as part of a much larger upgrade package including a new underfloor and rear wing assembly.”

Mercedes caught out by cooling issues (Autoport)

“We struggled with the brakes again today – there are not long enough straights to cool them down, and it was much hotter today so it came as a bit of a surprise to us actually.”

Ecclestone Indictment Calls F1 “Bribe” Into Question (Forbes)

“According to the indictment, Mr Gribkowsky did not have the power to give the green light to the sale to CVC which raises the question of what would have been the point in Mr Ecclestone bribing him.”

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Comment of the day

Was Williams’ strategy sensible or too conservative?

I think they went safe because they wanted points which, from their perspective, was the smart thing to do. They never expected Hamilton to be there so fast I guess. They tried a 2-3 but because of Hamilton his lighting start got a solid 3-4 gaining them 27 points. Good day in the office for a team, mind you, that scored 5 points all last season.
PorscheF1 (@Xtwl)

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On this day in F1

Niki Lauda led a Ferrari one-two in the Dutch Grand Prix 40 years ago today. In the championship he moved to within one point of McLaren’s Emerson Fittipaldi, who finished third.

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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99 comments on “Renault engine performance “unacceptable” – Horner”

  1. I enjoyed the idiot test. I’m happy to say I passed it with flying colours, and have been diagnosed as ‘not an idiot’.

    Also, the Bernie CGI message for Silverstone is hilarious. Plus that CGI message today was absolutely horrendous, I don’t know whether they expected us to take it seriously or not.

    Also, in terms of un-reliability for the Renault, how many other times has it actually failed? Because we were expecting a plethora of retirements caused by the engines before the season started. As I see it, Renault isn’t unacceptable, it’s just the others reliability are way above target. The performance on the other hand, that is a little poor, but I don’t think it’s as bad as it’s made out to be. Definitely worse, but not that bad.

    1. maarten.f1 (@)
      23rd June 2014, 10:03

      @philereid Who was doing the expecting? What the media and fans expect might not necessarily be what the teams expect. The reliability of the Renault is disappointing, definitely this far into the season. Either they improve soon, otherwise Red Bull will look for a new engine supplier (kinda doubt they’d do it themselves, might as well stick with Renault in that case)

    2. Daniel (@collettdumbletonhall)
      23rd June 2014, 12:19

      @philereid
      What CGI message was on today? I missed it.

      1. @collettdumbletonhall

        During the race on the 2nd to last lap, the cameras cut to a shot of T1 and it displayed a CGI message saying:

        “Congratulations Mr. Mateschitz. Thank you, Bernie.” With the Austrian flag directly above it.

        Link to image: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BqwkbkhCYAAq9BF.png:large

        1. Daniel (@collettdumbletonhall)
          23rd June 2014, 12:35

          That’s kind of cringey, ugh

      2. @collettdumbletonhall I wouldn’t say you missed it…

  2. Totally agree with Keith’s “idiot” tweet. Anyone who believes in such a conspiracy fails the test of logic that it would be more difficult to construct such a conspiracy than it is to make every pit stop perfect.

    Disagree? Then please explain exactly how such a conspiracy would work. Who would decide on the plan? How many people would need to know about it? Which people would be designated to effectively carry out the plan? Inquiring minds want to know.

    Remember, it usually involves a number of people to concoct a conspiracy. It only takes one person to expose it.

    1. I don’t believe it, but it requires only one mechanic if you want to know.

      I think Mercedes should do something about their pitstops. They are consistently slower than other top teams.

      1. @paeschli – I hear what you’re saying, but a single rogue mechanic with repeated incidents of causing slow pit stops for one driver would stick out like a sore thumb.

      2. @paeschli

        I think Mercedes should do something about their pit stops. They are consistently slower than other top teams.

        I don’t agree, actually. Yes it could be improved but as it stands they’re usually only a few tenths off the fastest time.

        Mercedes have to weigh that potential gain against the added risk of pushing too hard on the pit stops and sending a car out before it’s ready. With the punishment for an unsafe release being so severe now – a ten-second stop-go penalty plus a ten-place grid penalty – I think they would risk much more than they would gain by doing that.

        Mercedes’ car performance advantage is so great it should never be the case that they need a record-breaking pit stop to win a race. The biggest hindrance to Hamilton’s progress in this race wasn’t his pit stops, it was the fact he started eight places lower than he should have.

        1. Thanks Keith, it’s always nice to see some objective data because my comment came from what I remembered of the races and was not based on such data. Even though a “Fastest pit stops” list isn’t perfect (it only takes one good pit stop to be high on the list like we’re seeing with Williams this race) it’s probably a good indication.

          I don’t agree with you that they don’t have to push hard, if Williams had nailed the strategy this weekend, a pit stop might have decided who finished second. The competition wasn’t that far away.

  3. Wait, people actually called a conspiracy on Hamilton’s pit stops? Dear god…

    1. Well the results definitely are 1 sided and conspiracies have been founded on less, and then you have to take into account the mentality of what seems to be a lot of Hamilton Fans. I, though, am wondering if it’s something to do with heat build up in the wheels, due to LHs later braking when on a charge, causing difficulty in removing the wheels, there has to be a reason and MB-AMG need to find and fix it.

      1. I think it’s just a flaw with some part of the Merc system.

        If I recall correctly, a similar cake tin problem plagued Nico a few races ago?

        First pit error was Lewis’, though… Apparently he overshot his mark, which the crew can hardly be blamed for.

        1. Cake tin ?

          1. OmarR-Pepper (@)
            23rd June 2014, 1:20

            @cgturbo @hohum Brakes boiling as a cake in the oven maybe?

          2. @omarr-pepper @hohum

            lol. I probably royally screwed up the terminology there.
            I believe I’m trying to refer to the casing that the wheel enshrouds (outer part that’s visible when the wheel is removed).

            From what I gathered from my half paying attention to Ted’s Notebook, that casing was damaged in some way, which compromised the pit stop. A similar issue occurred in one of Nico’s stops in a previous race.

          3. Gotcha, the thing that looks like a brake drum, or maybe a cake tin.

      2. I wonder how long before Ham himself starts to believe in conspiracy theories……Nico is probably betting on it perhaps?

        1. I would guess that Nico definitely would be. He would be very happy that he beat Hamilton around the ‘Ring yesterday :)

        2. @jaymenon10 – Hamilton will get the radio transmission in his head: – “Lewis, you must let Nico pass, he is psychologically faster than you.”

    2. Yes Hamilton fans try and try every opportunity to give excuses for not finishing 1st…

  4. Typical Horner comments. Ted’s Notebook already debunked some of the things he’s claimed about Renault this year: the “same engine, same power output since Melbourne” comments are not true.

    When Red Bull decided to cheat and use more fuel than the rules permit in Australia (and the cheating was pre-meditated and blatent, as the steward’s published decision proved), he blamed the fuel sensor supplier. He continued blaming them until certain tech correspondents leaked the information that Red Bull and Lotus had been effectively modifying the design and installation of the sensors, which was causing the failures he was blaming on them.

    In the past?
    When Red Bull were losing to Brawn in 2009, he blamed Renault for a lack of top speed, when it was Red Bull’s aero philosophy to give up top speed for downforce in the corners.
    When Renault designed the off-throttle blowing system and gave them years of dominance, he effectively ignored their contributions and heaped praise on Vettel and Newey instead.
    When Newey’s poor packaging decisions led to the KERS systems overheating, he blamed the battery supplier and Renault.
    When there was a server failure for the telemetry, he claimed the standard ECU failed.

    I really wouldn’t like to be one of his suppliers.

    1. It’s not true they ignored Renault during their period of success. If you paid attention, Renault were regularly mentioned for being part of the winning package. However, they were not the differentiating factor: as you probably know, they were the only Renault-team that were dominating. So they did things better than other Renault-teams and they were the differentiating factor, not Renault.

      Regardless of what was and wasn’t said in the past, Horner is 100% right. Renault have had enough time to prepare and they were simply not ready for 2014. Not by a long shot. In F1, this is indeed unacceptable. And also in F1, as in any cut-throat business or sports, you will get called out on this. This is not children’s play. RBR are paying for good engines and they don’t get good value for their money.

      1. Actually, given Red Bull’s position as the official works team for Renault, Red Bull doesn’t have to pay for their engines (the charge for the engines is written off in return for providing advertising space for Renault). In effect, teams like Lotus and Caterham, who do have to pay the full price of the engines, are having to subsidise Red Bull (since Renault shifts the cost of development to them).

        1. So Renault get very valuable advertising space and RBR isn’t getting much in return for the moment.

          Potato, potatoe.

          1. On the contrary, Red Bull are getting a lot more out of Renault than Renault from Red Bull.

            Firstly, it is not just that Red Bull gets free engines and the maximum level of technical support from Renault for free, which is already more than $20 million a year being knocked off their bill.
            Because they are the works team, Red Bull also has the advantage that they can demand changes to the design of the engines that are bespoke to them – for example, modifications to the electronics systems during the V8 era that were designed specifically with their cooling requirements in mind.

            Then, on top of that, Red Bull get sponsorship from Infiniti, which is indirectly owned by Renault (Infiniti being owned by Nissan, where Renault is the largest shareholder and has full voting rights that means they have considerable control over the team).
            All in all, Renault are having to run their engine program at a quite considerable loss because they are subsidising Red Bull (Renault informed James Allen that they were making a loss of around €60 million a year, a large chunk of which was implied to be due to Red Bull).

          2. @anon: look, I’m not going to argue about anything you’re saying. It’s true. But that doesn’t mean I’m wrong.

            The point is that Renault(/Infiniti) and RBR have come to an agreement last season where, basically, advertisement has been given a certain value. It’s not literally expressed in millions of euro’s but apparently to RBR it’s worth a season’s worth of engines and support, and Renault has apparently agreed to that.

            So while RBR maybe isn’t paying in cash, they’re paying in advertising space that could have been sold to others as well. This advertising space could be expressed in millions of euro’s too.

            Long story short: RBR paid, not with money but with advertising space, and they paid for a sound, solid product. And they’re not getting that.

      2. Renault was actually a differentiating factor, Newey ideas of generating enormous downforce with the EBD would have never succeeded without the clever Renault engine mapping.
        RBR has been doing great because they were Renault works team, Lotus was one of the quickest all around car in 2012-2013 seasons, i remember Toto Wolf saying last year that a great part of RBR/Lotus speed is down to the clever Renault engine mapping.
        I don’t remember Chris Horner or Helmut Marko praising or mentioning Renault for their achievement the way they are now bashing them for their failures, the only individual that was praising Renault for what they’ve done in the RBR camp was Sebastian Vettel.

        1. With all due respect I don’t think Wolff is the best-placed reference to state why other teams were faster or better.

          Rumours of this genious mapping were only there last year anyway. There were 3 full years of RBR winning both titles that preceded 2013.

          Lotus were good in 2012-2013 but they were far from RBR’s level.

          Lastly, saying that they wouldn’t have been able to do it with another engine manufacturer is pure conjecture.

    2. Alan Prost himself already said Renault is unacceptable.

      Somehow, he has some relationship with Renault.

    3. Is it really Renault’s reliability that is the issue, or is Red Bull’s packaging? Maybe I haven’t been paying enough attention, but it seems to me that Red Bull are encountering more issues with the reliability of the Renault power plant then the other teams that use Renault power. Their issues always seem to be with the electrical side, rather than the mechanical side. For years now Red Bull has, well sucked, at the electrical side. For the last couple of years it was a near given that at least one of their cars would experience a KERS issue at some stage during a race weekend. I can’t help but think the issues they are having a related to the way they package the electronics in the car, rather than inherent faults with the Renault unit.

      1. No its renault. Thet lack about 80hp to mercedes. That has nothing to do with packaging. Red bull has the best car again but are being held back.

        1. Where does this figure of 80bhp come from? Horner suggested, in a recent interview with Sky, that the power deficit was only around 30bhp.

          1. It comes from whatever suits Horner to say at the time.

        2. That was at the start of the year. By now, Renault have improved reliability and can run closer to the engines top and Total has improved their fuel mix helping bring it down to about 30 php

      2. Seeing as how STR, Renault and Caterham don’t quite share RBR’s packaging yet experience a lot of problems of their own, I would definitely say it’s Renault’s reliability and not RBR’s packaging.

    4. All the Renault engined customers are suffering, not just Red Bull Racing. Lotus and Caterham may well wind up dropping out of F1 as a result. So I don’t think criticism of the Renault “power unit” is misplaced or unfair.

      In just the last three GP’s I count nine PU related DNF’s among the Renault teams. That’s a failure rate of 9/24 – and that’s just counting failures leading to a retirement: there have been numerous other problems which led to a compromised finish but still allowed the car to complete a race distance. The only driver with a Renault engine not affected has been Ricciardo, whose car miraculously works flawlessly every time. If he was having the same problems as Vettel I imagine RB would be giving Renault much, much more of an earful.

    5. @hairs, a team doesn’t win 4 consecutive WDC and WCC championships by greeting failure with a shrug of the shoulders. People and organisations which achieve great success aren’t geared towards politeness over results.

      Red Bull can improve their own chassis, but when it comes to the PU they have to take what they are given.It is generally accepted that Red Bull have a chassis equal to, if not better than, the Mercedes. It’s the performance and reliability of the Renault engine which is letting them down. There is nothing earth shattering about that statement, almost every F1 commentator has made the same point – but given that fact it is hardly surprising that Red Bull are unhappy with the power unit that has been supplied to them, or that they are expressing that dissatisfaction in no uncertain terms.

      RBR thanked Renault for its contribution in every press release following its WDC wins, having received the bouquets they can take the brickbats as well. Renault pushed hard for these new generation engines when the regulations were formulated, it’s not too much for Red Bull to ask them produce a product which is at least competitive with the other suppliers.

      That might not be nice, but the pointy end of F1 rarely is.

      1. @tdog, agreed, before racing began (2014) I said the Renault engine could potentially be the best engine, once we see it running as intended, well I was wrong, at least for 2014. Ferrari seem to be no more powerful than Renault but at least they are reliable, AMG is both more powerful than the opposition and pretty reliable, the Renault unfortunately lacks power and reliability. I wonder if Renault can bounce back next year or if they might just lick their wounds and leave F1 altogether.

      2. @tdog
        Renault didn’t actually push for the current V6 PU, they were pushing for a 4 cylinder environment friendly engine (Audi also expressed their interests) which was vetoed later by Ferrari, Mercedes also were against it. Renault are very good in making small engines, remember that both Mercedes A-Class and B-Class are powered by a diesel engine made by Renault
        The current PU were officially the result of some kind of a compromise between what Renault was pushing for and what Ferrari wanted, but in fact Mercedes (Ross Brawn) used all their political power behind the scenes (they threatned to live F1) and pushed for the 2014 engine regulations knowing that their engine department will do the job.

      3. @tdog There’s no reason for Red Bull to sugar coat failure, or to accept less than the best from suppliers.

        However what Horner often does is lie about a supplier in order to hide a failure in his team. That’s what I have an issue with.

    6. @hairs don’t agree. They were regularly mentioned as being part of the success and had even a guy on the podium to receive the constructors trophy.

      And Horner is right. They botched the V8 freeze in 2008 and only huge pressure got them to catch up in 09 but they always trailed the rest in power. Now after they failed the V6 introduction so spectacularly it’s time for the whip again. It can’t be that the package is still the worst in power, reliability, drivability and not very good at consumption (better than Ferrari) – 4-5 months into the season and the Renault guys still talk about a solid concept that just needs tweaking.

      1. @tmf42 The Renault engine was down on power for part of 2009. It was then dominant from 2010-2013. Horner’s comments cause people to characterise Renault (and other suppliers) as incompetent. That’s far from the case.

        1. @hairs – I disagree – incompetent is a relative term. They obviously know how to build an engine, just not how to build a competitive one at the first attempt – and that is a level of incompetence.
          Early in the season I would have agreed, even though they showed up with a non-working engine at the tests and they had to admit that their dyno-program was off, you couldn’t evaluate the whole concept. Now that all the early kinks should be sorted (according to Renault) it turns out to be the weakest one among the three so there are no excuses left and you gotta blame Renault for doing a bad job.

          1. @tmf42 but, on that basis, Mercedes and Ferrari are 4 times more incompetent than Renault, because they never mastered off throttle blowing in 4 years. Renault turned 2009 around in a few months, Mercedes never managed to turn 2010 around, they had to wait for a change in the rules. And already, with less than half the year gone, they’re starting to lose their advantage.

            Horner may have a point about Renault’s current problems, but you can guarantee a) he’s fabricating some of it, b) he’s using it to cover something else up, and c) he’s damaging the name of a company he’s supposed to be in partnership with, just to further his own interests.

            No wonder he’s mentioned as Bernie’s successor: throwing everyone else under the bus and damaging his own setup publicly is seen as an acceptable way of doing things.

          2. @hairs the EBD is 75% aero. Renault delivered the exhaust solution to make the engine work and the mappings but the rest was up to the aero engineers. I’m not denying that they provided a good solution but it took them all of 2008 and half of 2009 and the FIA’s intervention to allow changes to the frozen design so they could be competitive again. And all the flak from the various teams definitely helped back then.

            I’m also not denying that Horner’s approach isn’t political, but it seems without the whip Renault isn’t moving. Also he doesn’t burn bridges – he calls it a disaster (which it is) but also makes it clear that a solution has to come from both sides but Renault really needs to up their game. Imo, it’s not throwing them under the bus, but calling them out.

      2. Renault weren’t that far behind in terms of power – whilst Horner was making claims of a power deficit of 25-30bhp, an independent analysis by a German university demonstrated that the power deficit was only 10bhp to the Mercedes engine. Mercedes didn’t even have the most powerful engine in the V8 era either – the indication is that BMW actually had a very slight power advantage, though that wasn’t a tipping point for them.

        In fact, it’s worth noting that it was Newey who reportedly insisted on using the Renault V8 – with the slightly lower cooling requirements, slightly wider usable power band and lower fuel consumption that the Renault engine offered, the packaging and fuel consumption advantages were greater than the slight disadvantage in terms of peak power.

  5. Luke McCarthy Reed…hilarious tweet. That little message at the end was one of the most surreal things I’ve seen during a Grand Prix

  6. I missed the tweet from Luke Whatchamicallit above Keiths, take a close look at the picture, LOL.

  7. Anyone who still doesn’t believe these rubbish tyres are detrimental to the racing just needs to read Williams response to suggestions they threw the race. If we had tyres that lasted for a full race distance with only modest and gradual loss of performance Williams may have been able to pressure the Mercedes into a Montreal type of situation and this race would be being rated much higher. Wake up Bernie, admit you made a mistake and fix it.

    1. What the hell? These tyres are very durable. The williams just uses them worse because their car is not a winner yet.

      1. The Williams actually used them better in qualy, due to lower temperatures but suffered on Sunday due to higher temperatures, on a cold track Williams car could be a winner but how the hell does anyone expect the engineers to design a car to suit the tyres when the tyres are so temperature sensitive ?

    2. If you look at Bottas’s times, his lap times at the end of his stint were better than at the beginning – in other words, for Bottas at least, tyre wear was so low that the effect of the reduction in fuel weight outweighed the loss of grip due to wear of the tyres.
      Similarly, during Rosberg’s first stint on the soft tyre it looked as if he was hitting issues earlier than Bottas did (witness how Bottas closed up on him in the closing laps of that stint), suggesting that Bottas’s tyres weren’t in too bad shape. All in all, the tyres didn’t seem to be hindering him that much.

      Smedley himself has suggested that the problem with tyre wear is down to the rear suspension set up at Williams, which gave them a slight advantage in qualifying trim (where they could bring the rear tyres up to temperature more quickly than their rivals), but at the expense of higher rear tyre wear.

      1. ” If you look at Bottas’s times his lap times at the end of his stint were better than at the beginning”

        Yes exactly, Bottas was nursing his tyres until such time as they thought it safe to change to a new set.

  8. I’m really fed up with RBR. We’ve completed 8 rounds of the championship and the car still has a fundamental electronics issue. Perhaps RBR need to call in an auto electrician to give the cars a once over, because they clearly have no clue themselves.

    1. I’m amazed no one has found out vettels ongoing problems compared to ricciardos. Webber has donned a disguise and infiltrated himself onto vettels pit crew.

    2. Maybe if they wouldn’t put the exhaust tightly packaged low down, exactly there where things like generators, batteries and cables are, it would be more reliable. Then again, it might not be quite as fast.

  9. After reading those articles on Fernando’s and Kimi’s assessment on today’s race, I’m really starting to wonder once more if I wouldn’t have been better off jumping on the anti-Ferrari bandwagon in the 00s. Would have saved me a lot of heartache for the past 5 years..

    Don’t get me wrong, I’m enjoying F1, it’s just been since 2004 my outright favorite driver won a title and 2007 since my favorite team won a title with one of my favorite drivers. Though I like those numbers over the wait Ferrari have had before 2000…

    1. Your favourite can not always win, that is motor racing.

    2. It’s pretty hearbreaking isn’t it :/ Schuey losing out in 2006, Massa’s improvement in 2008, Webber tragic closeness in 2010 and Alonso’s excellent 2012 season. I apparently support the wrong person most years :P.

      Hence why I’m not doing any celebrating until the championship is officially over. I’m in the Rosberg camp so Hamilton will win by the end of the year :D him or Vettel!

  10. If I were in Mateachitz echoes I would have definitely tried to a) secure the Mecedes engine slot released next year by McLaren for Red Bull and bring b) bring VW/Porsche engine with STR.
    Even in their best days of 2010-2013 Renault was in a power disadvantage compared to Merc and worse in reliability. The disadvantage though is that inevitably Mercedes would know more about them through this interaction. So long-term solution should be either VW/Porsche or perhaps Honda as they don’t have their own horse in the race.

    Now, whether Mercedes would accept their chief rival RB as an engine customer (despite the possibility to pry more info) is another question.

    1. RB with merc engines is not gonna happen. Not in this life time.

    2. Mercedes is a direct competitor. If you look at what advantage Red Bull and Renault were able to establish with the exhaust blowing maps, that shows you being a Merc. customer wouldn’t work for them anymore than being a Ferrari customer would.
      As for Honda – they WILL have a works team in McLaren. And no plans to also provide engines to a direct competitor either. VW will not enter F1 in any form until the management of the sport changes.
      So its either stick with Renault, or go and do their own thing. I doubt any company building a customer engine would have the knowledge and resources to build a better engine and develop it short time @ifelix

      1. I am not so sure about your assessment of VW. Their top executives were invited to Austrian GP (which might be a coincidence but I know first hand that these guest passes are super expensive and one doesn’t dispense them just for exchanging niceties), nor have I heard or read anywhere that the current F1 management is the main reason they don’t foray into F1.

        What I do know though is that: 1. VW so far hasn’t seen a compelling business case 2. Unions wield a greater power on VW compared to Daimler which combined with states’ stake in VW makes it harder for them to start an initiative that could be considered wasteful.

        That being said, if their research shows that Mercedes is reaping financial returns for their F1 investment, then things might change quickly.

        1. Red Bull is a longterm partner for VW (see Rally as well as other racing, at a stretch even them sponsoring Webber in the Porsche is part of that), so sure enough if the time comes they want to go into F1 and Red Bull are still competing, a cooperation makes sense. As Red Bull is the owner of the ring, the passes wouldn’t be that horribly expensive to get a partner over.
          If you haven’t heard those rumours, go read up on the various blogs/magazines that know their F1 insights, its been mentioned repeatedly, that VW did look at F1, but current governance of the sport and likely the people involved ARE part of the reason they just won’t for now.

      2. it may be a long shot, but how about GM (Chevrolet) or Ford? none of them are interested?

    3. Honda will have Mclaren as works team. Ferrari and Mercedes arent that stupid. Big manufacturers failed many times to build N/A engines, Red Bull would be nowhere with the current regulations.

      And besides, leaving Renault would likely result in the loss of their title-sponsor, Infiniti.

    4. Why would VW choose such a weak and bland team as their primary customers?

  11. Oh Christian, at it again aren’t you. I liked these quotes in that Reuters article:

    “We need to work together as partners. There will not be another engine in the back of the car next year, but we want to be competitive and we want to run at the front,” said Horner.” Which was swiftly followed by:

    “It’s not our business, it’s not our responsibility. We’re the end user and it’s just frustrating that it’s not where it needs to be at the moment,” added the Briton. ”

    So what are you Christian, partner (i.e. works team) or “just a user”, you can’t have it both ways. The last I checked Red Bull was Renault’s works team. As such Red Bull should knuckle down and work with Renault to fix their issues so that both partners flourish rather than taking every opportunity to slander them (@hairs pointed out the numerous examples of this above).

    If I was Renault I would be massively brassed off with Red Bull. Over the last 4 seasons rarely did Red Bull give Renault any credit for their role in the team’s domination of the sport, and tyheir role was significant (be it the Renault V8’s superior packaging and cooling requirements or their trick engine mapping). I have never in all my days known a team show so little appreciation for their engine partner. If I was a boss at Viry and I heard Horner saying things like this I would say “bonne chance Christian, no more power units for you in 2015”.

    1. I heard Renault IS actually considering stopping their F1 involvement @geemac!

      But yeah, one car gives up (again its a newey super tight package, with complicated exhausts to optimize airflow making heat buildup more of an issue), while both Caterhams ran without any trouble, the Lotus cars were lacklustre but ran the race, the STR cars had to retire because of other mechanical issues in the teams hands and the other Red Bull car went to the finish fine as well, be it not as far up as they would have liked.
      So is Renault still down on power? Yes. But, for Red bull it was their bad car handling that did most of the trick for where they ended up.

      1. Daniel (@collettdumbletonhall)
        23rd June 2014, 12:41

        @bascb
        Where did you hear that from?

        1. I think Ted mentioned it yesterday/last weekend during his notebooks, but it might have been someone like Joe Saward or James Allen on their blogs.

  12. Sure, Mr. Sylt. The fact that Bernie did not try to bribe the full board, but “just” the guy that was presenting all the arguments for and against to said board before they voted on it, is a weakness in the case?
    I am pretty sure it shows Bernie knows what he is doing and where its easiest/most effective to influence goings in his favour

    1. @bascb, yes the “logic” in the article is pretty twisted coming from the totally neutral mind of an observer who definitely is not in Bernies pocket.

    2. @hohum No I am not “in Bernies pocket” and I reserve my rights to take action against any suggestion to the contrary.

      @bascb Have you read the indictment? The prosecutors say in it that Bernie was NOT doing whatever was “easiest/most effective to influence goings in his favour.” This is because Gribkowsky did NOT have the power to give the green light to the sale to CVC. As I imagine that you have not read the indictment, here is the relevant quote from it:

      “The Accused knew that a sale at this price would fall through since he reckoned that even Dr Gribkowsky could not negotiate this price with BayernLB.”

      This comment is a good summary:
      “Cannot bribe someone with no authority”
      https://twitter.com/DriversRepublic/status/481099988651765760

      It is not advisable to make judgements on active legal proceedings if you have not at least read the relevant documents.

      1. Sorry Mr. Sylt, but I still do not see more than pointed out that Bernie was clearly well informed on what to do. On one hand he did his best to get Gribowsky to support a sale to CVC, and on the other hand he worked CVC to come up with a price that would be acceptable to the bank. And he seemingly did his best so that CVC would be able to find the funds to do so (see contacting RBR).

        Now, I do not want to “judge” whether that does or does not make Bernie guilty of bribing, as I am not that familiar with German law to even start to do so. It will be up to a judge off course. But I really don’t see much doubt in there that Bernie did what he could (Unless you suggest he it even imaginable he would have even tried to bribe the full board) to make things happen as he wanted.

        1. sorry that should be “RBS Bank”, not RBR (early morning typo)

      2. Christian, I remember your previous response, hence I took care to not say you were in Bernies pocket, in fact definitely not, which is why I find your logic rather twisted in saying that bribery is only bribery when it is to the ultimate decision maker, but not when it is paid to his adviser. I’m sure there are many business men awaiting trial or appeals for bribery in China and Arabia who wish you were right on this point.

        1. @HoHum The law has to be black or white. If Mr X was not behind the wheel of a car which broke the speed limit then Mr X can not get points on his license for that infringement. If Gribkowsky did not have the power to put through a sale to CVC then that is a severe hurdle in the way of the claim that he was paid to put through a sale to CVC. He could have TRIED to put through the sale but he could not have guaranteed it would go through. The court has to consider the likelihood of whether BE would have paid $44m in the hope that a try would work.

          @BasCB There is a big difference between BE supporting a sale to CVC and BE paying a $44m bribe to get the deal put through. The prosectors do not deny the former but, as pointed out above, there is a severe hurdle in the way of the latter. It is also worth remembering that the prosecutors have admitted that the reason the money changed hands is that BE was blackmailed….
          http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/formulaone/article-2619748/Bernie-Ecclestone-blackmailed-paying-26m-German-banker.html

  13. If I were Renault, I would dump Red Bull, not the other way around. Over these last 6 or 7 years, the amount of flak by Horner et al. has been ridiculous. Let’s see how they do without a supplier that helped them win 4 world championships. Go make your own engine.

    1. @john-h Renault would be crazy to do so.

      1. They would have to dump TWO teams (Red Bull and Toro Rosso). With the problems they’re having, they need as much mileage as possible to learn what they need to solve them.
      2. The other Renault teams (Lotus and Caterham) do not look anything like in winning shape.

      On the other hand, Red Bull can still buy Cosworth – or even better – get another manufacturer to enter F1 (although the latter will admittedly be harder).

      1. Off course that is all based on the assumption that Renault would want to continue in F1 @journeyer. Which, given that their top team is doing nothing but giving them bad publicity, and the rest are just hangers on at the moment, might not be as far fetched as we would have imagined a year ago.

  14. ‘But I prefer to have no respect and to win more trophies.’
    Each to his own, but is Alonso serious? I think Vettel (Who I’m sure isn’t as highly regarded as Alonso by the general community) would like to have a word with him… I guess we all want what we can’t have.

  15. I think Horner’s comment is a bit unfair. I mean, Red Bull has been clearly the second best team from the start of the season, they underperformed in Austria and it’s not Renault’s fault. Maybe they didn’t have the best setup, maybe the car just isn’t suited to the track, I don’t know, but Toro Rosso looked very good for the whole weekend (Kvyat was two seconds ahead of Ricciardo before retiring).

    I don’t mean to say that Renault is doing an impeccable job, because they aren’t, reliability is very poor even after 8 races. But I think that such a comment after eight races is a bit useless. Red Bull underperformed in their home GP and they need a scapegoat, so they blame Renault.

  16. What Horner says is true. The lack of power of RBR is tremendous. If you are a team leader and you watch Vettel stopping in the second lap with no power and Ric struggling for the 8th place in the last lap, something has to be said and done. I honestly don’t see a bright development for RBR this year. And with Honda in the competition things will get worse I suppose.

    But, my favourite quote is this one: “But I prefer to have no respect and to win more trophies.”
    When a great part of F1 fanatic users tend to attack Vettel because he’s not a great driver, and won because the competiton was soft, bla, bla, bla, and praise Alonso as a legendary driver, etc, etc, here we have the proof…they don’t care about being good or bad, or being hated or praised. They just want to win. How about that?

    1. @yes-master
      Massa & Raikkonen are a clear demonstration of how the car is a vital factor in winning or losing, Raikkonen used to be the race monster in Lotus and Massa used to be the worst driver in the world, as soon as they have switched cars, Raikkonen now sucks with that Ferrari and Massa is getting a Pole position with Williams. Despite the fact that in the current era the drivers input is almost Zero, Alonso with his great talent and relentless consistency still shined and put that Ferrari in the recent 5 years in a places that didn’t belong to in the first place. The thing it is painful for drivers like Alonso who can fight with in an inferior machinery compared to the competition not to be able to fight at the front just because the car is so down in every aspect

  17. Red Bull should shut up. They barely mentioned Renault when winning or gave them any credit, don’t use the name in their team, barely have the logo on any team kit and yet now they aren’t winning, it’s all Renaults fault.

    1. Except that Renault and Infiniti/Nissan are partners, so Renault would have agreed to the “Infiniti” Red Bull Racing name.

      1. My comments still stand, it’s a Renault engine, not an Infiniti. RBR barely mention them until it’s all going wrong.

        1. Your point hardly stands when Infiniti and Renault are partner companies. Infiniti recognition benefits Renault.

  18. I feel like the term ‘idiot test’ is a step too ignominious for me.

    Don’t get me wrong, I agree with the intent of it, that nothing on Earth points to a conspiracy in that matter – and I also agree with it – but c’mon… Labelling someone an idiot just because he or she holds an unfounded belief!? Really!? We all hold such beliefs whether we accept it or not (and I don’t consider myself religious by any means again).

    If it was a joke, then it’s a ‘meh’ from me as I think what points out something the author seems serious about (i. e. there is no conspiracy at Mercedes), cannot be that depicted as something much humorous in an inherent sense. I mean the intent is clearly to point out a conclusion of an argument, not amusement.

  19. Red Bull will have to put up with Renault at least until the end of next season, there’s no two ways about it. So, although it’s going to be frustrating for them with the reliability and performance issues, they are going to have to grin and bear it. There are no alternatives:
    Mercedes? They have their own team, the last thing they’d want to do is provide their strongest rival with their engines. Imagine if Red Bull beat them to the title next season? How ridiculous would that look – ‘Mercedes powers Red Bull to win title ahead of Mercedes’.
    Ferrari? Same reasons as Mercedes. No way.
    Honda? Their works team is McLaren and they won’t be supplying another team until 2016 at least.

    For 2016, they may be able to attract a new or returning manufacturer in the form of either VW, BMW, or Ford-Cosworth (a buyout has been suggested), although I can’t see VW entering yet. Infiniti’s deal with Red Bull ends after 2015 also, which just adds to my (and other I’m sure) belief that they will end their Renault partnership after next year.
    Where would that leave Renault? F1 might be quite a different place by then. Caterham F1 may not exist. Toro Rosso would surely follow Red Bull’s lead again. Forza Rossa – God knows. Lotus is hard to predict with the financial situation. Maybe a Renault buyback at Team Enstone if they are still looking to get recognition from F1.
    It should be interesting whatever happens.

  20. “But I prefer to have no respect and to win more trophies.”
    Translation: “I would love to be Sebastian Vettel – no respect at all but the cabinet full of trophies.”

    1. There’s a long list of people, from Mario Andretti to Stirling Moss to Mark Webber to Murray Walker to Kimi Raikkonen, who have a great deal of respect for Vettel. He doesn’t get much respect from anonymous people on the internet, true enough. I doubt if he loses much sleep over that.

  21. Horner’s comments about the Renault power unit would have had more credibility for me if he had made them after Ricciardo WON in Canada, although of course everyone would have thought him crazy…
    Ricciardo is still third in the championship standings and Red Bull second in the Constructors. Red Bull have for years accepted that they are one of the slowest cars on the circuit because they found, for four years, that downforce was the winning formula and not speed.
    So Christian, may I suggest you send Vettel back to driving school, get a new electronics expert, and just be patient for once and let Renault sort things out for you.

    1. Difference is that the past 4 years putting the focus on aero at the expense of pure speed was Red Bull’s choice.

      This year there down on top end speed mainly because the Renault engine is significantly down on power & horridly unreliable when they try to turn the power up.

      Its also not just a Red Bull problem, Look at all the engine/hybrid related problems the other 3 Renault powered teams have had.

      Also consider that one area Renault have not got sorted out yet is drivability & that is an area where the Mercedes powered teams have a big advantage, There getting consistent power delivery every time they hit the throttle while its a bit hit & miss with the Renault.

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