Red Bull demands Ferrari engine

Red Bull has reiterated its recent Formula One quit threat and says it will only stay in the sport next year if it is guaranteed engine performance parity in a deal with Ferrari.

During the Singapore Grand Prix weekend Red Bull adviser Helmut Marko said the company has already decided to pull out of F1 if it cannot secure a competitive engine for next season. It comes after breakdown of the team's relationship with Renault this season, which appears set to end in a premature divorce.

"Red Bull doesn't want to have customer engines that have 30 to 40 bhp less and can be manipulated by the constructor in case of the customer team endangering the works team ... Red Bull would like to continue in F1 only if Ferrari is willing to provide true works engines that are on the same level as the engines of Vettel and Raikkonen."

It then quotes Mateschitz as saying: "As a customer team you will only get an engine that is good enough to take away points from their immediate rivals. But this engine will never be good enough to beat the works team. With such a customer engine we will never be world champion again. And if that's the case we lose interest."

Full article here

What do you think should happen? On one hand we don't want to lose a team but if you were Ferrari, would you give your exact engine to a direct competitor?

Thanks,
Iain.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/23/2015 06:39PM by madotter.

Works? Suppose they want it free of charge as well.

Renault definitely dropped the ball with this engine formula, but Red Bull's politics have become really tiresome.

I'd be tempted to make sure they'd always be a development stage (or two) behind simply for the sheer cheek.

Wouldn't it be ironic if their build a complete pup of a chassis next year and the engine became the stronger link?

Red Bull are behaving like spoilt children.

It was so different in the 1980s. Remember, the Williams team were the leading team in 86 and 87 but Honda choose to give their engine to Lotus and Mclaren, despite the fact that Williams had been their partner since 1983. Frank Williams did not quit but made the best of it using the Judd engine for 1988, while he worked to get a Renault deal for 89. He was and is a true fan of motor racing and an honourable man. Dietrich Mateschitz is in a different mould. His true colours are coming to the fore. They should call his bluff. Only this might loose a lot of people their jobs in F1 which would be a real shame. Ferrari should (by their choice) sell engines at a good price to DM and if they choose to make them 'B spec' he should suck it up as the price to pay to Renaults failure. 4 world titles, hard times now - swings and roundabouts. That's life.

My opinion is that Red Bull know F1 needs them more than ever and Ferrari and Mercedes know this. F1, Ferrari and Mercedes included, will pretty much die if Red Bull and Toro Rosso pull out, with Lotus/Renault still up in the air and Sauber and Force India hardly flush.

It's just bartering. It's risky, but I think it's a case of pushing for something and if they don't get it then it's not through a lack of trying. Would they pull out of F1? I can believe it if they're still going to be a second a lap slower with no obvious chance of improvement in the future, and whatever the chances were of VAG joining F1 in 2018, they'll at the very least be delayed with the current scandal and a new head of the group due to be appointed.

I think Red Bull have really shot themselves in the foot really. If Renault don't buy Lotus officially until next year (ala BMW Sauber - Ferrari) they pull out for 2016 then return in 2017 as nissan or another brand with a brand new re designed power unit which could be as powerful as the Mercedes, they've lost the chance of being a customer or even works partner with Renault/Nissan etc now.
Plus now everyone has seen how they act when things don't go their way which is a massive turnoff for Ferrari, Plus why would Ferrari want to supply a works power unit to Red Bull anyway, it makes no sense because it a general consensuses that Red Bull chassis is superior to Ferrari then it would look bad when the customer team beats the works team, esp for Ferrari as a brand. If it happens it would be interesting as Williams could ask for the same from Mercedes if they could come up with the money. As mentioned i cannot see VAG joining now with potential fines of up to $25 Billion USD. I could see Torro Rosso being happy with the customer Ferrari but Red Bull is just another story


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If you go and talk bad about girls you sleep with, it's gonna get around, and they will be hesitant to fool around with you. Kinda of the same problem with Red Bull, and they should have known. They can't complain, their engineered their own situation.

As for the prospect of Red Bull leaving due to not being able to source an engine, on the meta-level, this is the consequences of F1 adopting such a complex and demanding set of technical regulations. If Renault and Honda can't get it right, and Ferrari falters before they get a grip, who can we realistically expect to step up to the plate and supply engines? F1 is more and more becoming a series dominated by a couple of manufacturers, and the rest are just there to make up the numbers.... and are increasingly politically enslaved by their engine contract. We are heading towards a DTM scenario.

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It's only after we've lost everything, that we are free to do anything.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/28/2015 01:13AM by Morbid.

Yeah, it is going to implode at some point. I thought it might be over last winter, given the stories about Sauber, Force India, Lotus's issues, Marussia going into administrator and Caterham leaving. Somehow it survived, but most of the same teams are having similar problems this time again. We know Lotus almost certainly won't survive if the Renault takeover collapses - by the sounds of it the only reason they're still going now is because of assurances to HMRC that a deal is expected to be concluded soon.

Anyway, it's just papering over the cracks. I like the new power units, but we're in an impossible situation. Honda and Renault won't allow things to continue down this path - they need assurances that they'll be allowed to become competitive at some point, but Ferrari and Mercedes won't permit that, and we'll likely need agreement from all teams. The ever-decreasing tokens rules mean that large-scale power unit layout changes are surely out of the question, so the teams are likely stuck with the basic layout they've got now.

Nobody wants engine equalisation - this isn't touring cars where you just remove a bit of boost pressure. Renault and Honda were allowed to catch up during the V8 regulations, but this is far more complex. Where an engine might lack top-end power, it may offer other benefits - fuel consumption, weight, compactness, torque, driveability and so on. Those were also the case last time, but they are all bigger factors in the performance of a car now.

Short of each manufacturer starting from scratch, I can't come up with a 'fair' scenario, and that would cost hundreds of millions for each, and again Mercedes and Ferrari would oppose it anyway.

It would also push the cost of the engines up again... and that's the last thing the non works teams need.

J i m Wrote:
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> It would also push the cost of the engines up
> again... and that's the last thing the non works
> teams need.

I have seen that argument thrown around a lot, and it is both clever and tricky, because essentially it is right, but in actuality, it is wrong. Which means it is perfect for deceiving people, without lying, to maintain status quo.

What are the costs of a new engine formula? Or even reintroducing an old formula?

Well, IMHO, the cost that matter can be broken down into two categories. The first is the actual production costs. The second is the R&D attached to a formula switch.

Looking at production costs, you can break that into two categories that really matter (assuming materials costs will be fairly equal). The first is the cost of setting up a production line - or if you have an pre-existing one, retooling, which would be the case for almost all F1 engines. Setting up/retooling is expensive make no mistake. All the machines have to be changed/recalibrated and the flow of the unit through manufacturing has to be thought through again from the ground up. Software has to be bought or written. People need to be trained/hired/fired. The effort involves a lot of people, from management assets, to HR and production engineers. That is the essential part of the argument, and that is true. There is a large expenditure up front.

But what this means in actuality, is that the first engine to leave the assembly line, is very expensive, as it carries these costs. It is also going to be the most costly in terms of the way through the assembly line, and the slowest unit produced. From hereafter, every unit is going to be produced cheaper and faster, following an "ln function", which means fast initial gains followed by diminishing returns, until you eventually see almost no improvement at all. Unit number 25 to leave the production line comes off significantly faster and cheaper than unit 1, while unit 10000 is not going to be all that different in terms of speed and cost, than unit 9975.

So, the argument of switching to a new formula - on the production side, will increase costs of engine supply, is essentially true, and this is also why it can be, and is, applied to the old V8s, but actually it's false. Retooling to an new/old formula will incur the costs mentioned above, and gains in mass production of the existing engine formula will be reset. But it hides the fact that an engine formula (like the old v8 or a new less complicated engine formula), that is at a base cost cheaper than the existing formula, once the initial costs are overcome will be cheaper, and will remain cheaper on the long run. And in reality manufacturers exported the retooling costs of the V6 to the customer teams as well, so there is nothing new here! It has been argued to put an engine supply cost cap in place, and effectively, this would see that the retooling costs are kept to the manufacturers and not exported to customer teams, delaying the point in time when manufacturers reach break-even and start turning profits on engine supply.

Then there is the cost of R&D. It is twofold. The first is up front R&D on new a formula. The second is development R&D as the engine is run on track and in the championship. The up front R&D is real and it is significant. But just like retooling, it is a single shot expense. Development R&D is equal to what we already have in the V6s, even with the token system. If works teams have 500 million USD to blow on development R&D on an engine, they are going to do it, even if they only have a handful of tokens. If the token system makes it so, that the costs are not worth the gains, this money is not going to disappear out of the R&D budget. It is just going to be channelled somewhere else.

So, when it comes to reintroduction of the V8s, you get retooling costs, and that is pretty much it. There is no up front R&D, and development R&D is going to be whatever the works teams can get away with. So no, it would not push up engine costs to reintroduce the v8s. Initially yes, with a one time expenditure (read, manufacturers stop turning a profit on customer teams, which they feed into their own works team, and will have to wait a while before they start doing so again), but it would in the long run be cheaper than the existing formula, and that is the economic sustainability we need in F1.

When it comes to introducing a new less complex formula, then you get up front R&D + retooling costs, and that is also a one time expenditure. In the long run, it is the same development R&D costs (= whatever the regs let's you get away with), and a cheaper formula.

Cheaper + the same = cheaper than existing engine regs.

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It's only after we've lost everything, that we are free to do anything.



Edited 7 time(s). Last edit at 09/29/2015 03:33AM by Morbid.

It seems to be getting quite desperate now.

Red Bull have landed themselves in a right mess. They're doing a brilliant job of alienating themselves from everybody. They've pushed Renault to the point where they no longer want to supply any team except their own works outfit. Honda have said no, not that Red Bull would want a Honda engine anyway but that scant opportunity has also been ruled out for Toro Rosso. Mercedes are simply not interested and their move to supply Manor with season current spec engines from 2016 could be seen as some awesome trolling of Red Bull on their part.

Meanwhile Ferrari have reportedly offered to supply updated 2015 spec engines only which has been taken as an insult since Sauber and Hass are expected to have the 2016 spec engines.

So it's down to some political mambo jumbo and hissy fits to persuade Ferrari to supply the latest spec engines or Red Bull pull out of F1, taking four cars off the grid and four very talented drivers with them. It's that... or "Please Mr Renault, let us have our last year of engines whilst we learn some manners".

It's a ridiculous situation really, but quite typical of F1 politics to be honest. I think there's a very real chance that Red Bull will pull the plug.

If ten months ago some said that's a greater chance of Manor being on the 2016 Melbourne starting grid than Red Bull.. we'd all have burst out laughing. But it really is that silly now.

I can't see any serious take over bids for the teams either, and even if by some fluke they did get taken they'd over they'd still have to arrange engine deals and the top technical talent would be poached by other teams.

So! Well done F1. You're successfully diminishing the size of the grid and ensuring that the very exciting talents of Magnussen, Vandoorne, Sainz, Verstappen etc will end up shuffled out because there's no seats for them. Good job.

Verstappen's future is safe regardless of what happens with Red Bull. It seems Ferrari are crawling all over him for the future, so if Red Bull do pull the plug he won't be short of offers. Even if he's not racing next year he's not going to be held out to dry.

I don't think Red Bull will pull out, unless they've vastly underestimated Ferrari's stance and are left high and dry, and I think Bernie (who seems worryingly in bed with Red Bull - see the complete lack of coverage of Mercedes over the Suzuka weekend) will be banging lots of heads together to do all he can to secure Red Bull an engine... if Red Bull do pull out we'll really see just how little influence Bernie has nowadays.

No, I think it's just a case of Red Bull and Ferrari standing their ground. It seems the 2016 rules won't allow for engine disparity (given that Manor are getting 2016 engines rather than the cheaper option of 2015 Mercs if that was available to them - either that or Wehrlein is so highly rated that Mercedes are basically throwing engines at Manor, and it certainly sounds like a cosy deal).

I did see Manor get a deal, but for Red Bull I honestly think they won't pull out, they negotiating Ferrari for 2016 engine, but they think it will be spare 2015 engine. I don't think thats true. Like otherwise few months ago they threatening to quit F1, now this time they would have gone with Mercedes, but it's too late for them.

Indeed, Red Bull is the most dominant car we saw in 2010-2013. Yeah it's the glamorous energy drink racing car than Monster Energy. So my point is whether they can solve this crisis, or no.
Well if 2 Red Bull teams pull out, it could trigger a 3rd car teams suggested by Wolff if that happens. But I hope it doesn't happen to them, they are the best team they've dominated already in this F1, now Mercedes pulled their turn to be double world champions this year.

What I can imagine, the news I read that Renault might call Mercedes and Ferrari a little help to work on Renault engine, but I hope thats the case and it would save Red Bull Partnership out.