Given the uproar Red Bull Racing have caused in Formula One over the past two years, it would not be unreasonable to expect that they have negotiated themselves into a better position for 2016. After all, they’ve done a new deal with Renault, which sees their income halved from the combined Infiniti/Total sponsorship when the alternative was to simply enforce the final year of the existing contract they had with the French F1 engine manufacturer – and run a standard Renault F1 power unit.
Is it the case that Red Bull Racing have been thoroughly shafted? Has the negotiating power of the fizzy drinks billionaire been so pathetic that his F1 team will slip further down the constructors rankings?
If Adrian Newey is to be believed, then their fortunes for next year are worse than ever and he fears that his Milton Keynes team could fall behind McLaren Honda in 2016. “I believe Honda, what we have seen, will make a good step. I think their internal combustion engine is a reasonable engine,” he told Motorsport. “Their problem this year has been that they made the recovery units on the turbo, the MGU-H, far too small. But that is an easy problem to address over the winter.”
Despite the Red Bull commissioned Mario Illien developments of the Renault power unit, Newey is pessimistic: “If we start the season with the same power as we have had throughout 2014 and 2015, which I think may well be the case, then we are going to be even further behind.”
Things must be bad if the Red Bull Racing guru designer has no idea what the capabilities will be of the power unit sitting in the rear of his RB12.
As an aside, Red Bull Racing would also have us believe that observers have recently reported an LMP1 car in the Red Bull Racing building 9 facility, which houses their AVL virtual track testing rig for testing the compatibility between chassis and engine.
The last paragraph is rather baffling. What is its intended purpose?
I’m guessing the rumor mill is cranking up for the off-season. I’m also guessing that Newey’s remarks are disinformatzia.
Either they are testing a power unit in an LMP1 car with no restrictions, Or trying to persuade porsche to enter for the future. I am guessing tho.
“Despite the Red Bull commissioned Mario Illien developments of the Renault power unit”
You still going on with this rubbish, Mario has nothing to do with RBR.
“If we start the season with the same power as we have had throughout 2014 and 2015, which I think may well be the case, then we are going to be even further behind.”
Do you need any more proof RBR will be running the EXACT same pu as the renault works team? Newey has no clue because RBR don’t make engines, say it with me judge 🙂
I like how both Gary and TJ13 stick to their stories. Earlier scopes and analysis make me feel reasonably confident to Side with the judge here.
100% agree with Garry when are you going to let this Illien RBR block alternative engine rubbish go! Renault have already confirmed Illien is in fact working with them!
Rubbish? RBR contracted Illien in November of 2014 (or before) to assist them. Then they paid for Illien to provide input to Renault on their ICE combustion in the first half of 2015. That two facts are not disputable, it’s public knowledge and was reported everywhere.
Furthermore, Renault acknowledged Mario’s work which was presented to them at mid-season. They publicly declined to follow Illien’s new direction in combustion strategy for ICE. That is public knowledge from Renault, reported in major press.
I thought that the most interesting thing reportedly said by Newey was that he believes that the Honda PU could be decent next year. One journalistic source has predicted that RB might have a Honda PU in 2017 which at least sounds possible. However, this is F1 where few protagonists tell the truth and in some cases actually say the opposite of the truth so we are probably none the wiser even if we think we are! For my own bit of speculation I wonder if RB and/or Mario have had any input to Honda’s PU programme. Ron would not like that either. After all wasn’t it TJ13 who said that some Honda people had visited Milton Keynes and I don’t suppose it was to admire the local scenery.
Spot on, Carlos!
The way I read this interview is that after some evaluation of the briefings they’ve received from Honda, Newey foresees Honda getting top of their 2015 weaknesses, and are likely to be more competitive.
The key question for the next few months at RBR is what engine are they to run in 2017 and beyond?
From Neweys comments it looks like he and hopefully the rest of the management of Red Bull have been reading ‘How to win friends and influence people’! They need to build bridges and it was only really Ron who stopped RB having Honda engines. So Newey saying nice things about Honda might help in future should VW and their own PU program (if there is one) not go to plan.
As for LMP1, I thought teams were not allowed to use ‘mules’ to test PUs.I wonder if RB is effectively hiring out their AVL road facility but it doesn’t seem an ideal time of year.
Judge, you are being a little bit too choosey as to what goes or not on your site, don’t do the same mistake of most of the other British based sites.
Such as? Anyway, his site – his rules.