Red Bull and Toro Rosso still don’t have an engine for 2016

The position of Red Bull is becoming less and less comfortable, and it can only blame itself: since the advent of the new technical regulations, Red Bull has continuously criticized its engine supplier publicly for not being able to continue its domination of the previous four seasons.

Such a stance eventually tired Renault’s leaders, who announced last month that negotiations had indeed begun to break the contract that bound the two parties until the end of next season. Furthermore, the French engine manufacturer also signed a letter of intent to buy back its former team, Lotus, to return as a full-fledged constructor.

Christian Horner, the team principal, favored two options regarding his engine supplier: obtaining the best engine on the grid, namely that of Mercedes, or bringing Audi into Formula 1 to benefit from factory team status. However, he received a refusal for both options, for different reasons. Mercedes does not intend to supply its engine to a direct competitor, which could rival them on track. Therefore, Toto Wolff preferred to sign a contract with the modest Manor to replace Lotus rather than supplying one of the two Red Bull teams.

As for Audi, in the midst of the Volkswagen scandal, the timing is not ideal to announce a new program worth several hundred million euros and increase its visibility when financial penalties are expected to be very high for the German group.

Since Honda is already entangled in its difficulties with McLaren, the only real option remains Ferrari, which could thus obtain additional revenues. But Red Bull maintains its bravado by loudly demanding that it wants the same engine as Ferrari and to receive the updates at the same time as the Scuderia. In a word, it wants factory team status while being just a simple customer. Knowing that Sauber had to wait four races to get the updates brought by Maranello in Canada and that Manor only has last year’s engine, such a demand has very little chance of succeeding.

Christian Horner could only complain that his teams still do not know around which engine they should design their car for next year: « We are very, very late. For Toro Rosso, it’s even more critical than for Red Bull. It was already difficult two weeks ago… So we are very, very late. »

Ferrari knows it has nothing to lose by extending negotiations to the maximum while Red Bull has almost everything to lose. Then there remains the recurring issue of a complete withdrawal from F1, as has been brandished for months. However, with huge penalties to be paid to Bernie Ecclestone in case of departure before 2020 (the sum of a billion euros is regularly mentioned), it is unlikely that this will materialize…

The 2016 season already looks quite complicated for the structures of Milton Keynes and Faenza…

With the participation of www.racingbusiness.fr