Red Bull team boss, Christian Horner, came out saying that his team might be forced to find a different engine supplier for the 2016 season, given the poor performance of Renault’s turbocharged V6 motor.
Unlike Mercedes who managed to get their unit working from the very first pre-season test, Renault’s engines have suffered from unreliability and poor performance throughout the 2014 campaign.
Should Red Bull, winner of both titles the past four seasons, find themselves in the same predicament with Renault in 2015 as they do now, Horner is in no doubt that his team will link up with a rival manufacturer.
“The great thing about a team like Red Bull is that we’ve always got options,” Horner said at a team go-karting event in Milton Keynes on Tuesday.
“I’m obviously not going to disclose what those [options] are here. But we want to run at the front and we want to be competitive and in order to be competitive we have to have a sensible power unit.”
Renault, in the meantime, tried to reassure both its F1 customers and fans of their unwavering efforts to improve.
Heading to the upcoming British GP this weekend, Renault Sport F1’s head of track operations Rémi Taffin said that after the issues suffered in Austria two weeks ago, the manufacturer is in a positive frame of mind ahead of this weekend’s race.
“It’s fair to say that Austria was frustrating and disappointing, but we’ve looked at every scenario in a very detailed manner and are confident the failures won’t happen again,” he said.
“There have been changes on two levels; both technically in terms of software evolution and in terms of procedures to ensure we catch an issue before it becomes a major problem.”
It remains to be seen whether Renault will overcome its issues in 2014, let alone for this weekend’s Grand Prix. Not only are they at a deficit with regards to power and their hands cut off when it comes to extracting more power from the engine, but they also need to better their reliability and provide a constant performance from their unit.
– Charlen Raymond