Infiniti Red Bull Racing 2015

[turbof1]

My point was, if they wanted they could deliver engines in time. The reasoning why not is merely a lame excuse.

Shall we put that on the 2015 wall of lamest F1 excuses? I think it'll fit very nicely underneath Sauber's argument of safety about not letting Giedo vd Garde drive in Australia .

For the record (yes to you Fox), that's no criticism to the decision to not deliver PUs.

[FoxHound]

@meme

Was not aimed at you, merely why a lot of people are fed up with demands.

[Jolle]

I've posted this in another thread. The company running Red Bull has very little assets and not a lot of cash in the bank. They could easily let it go bankrupt if anyone tries to go after them for leaving the sport. So there's no monetary gain for anyone if RB leaves.

https://companycheck.co.uk/company/0312 ... ED/summary

It's a tree of companies, the full parent of Red Bull Racing Limited is Red Bull Technology (who design and build the cars, RBR just "races' them) and they have about 0.5 million cash, and RBT is a 100% daughter of Red Bull Gmbh, so I guess there is a good cashflow between the companies

[FoxHound]

You know just as well as me that Ferrari threatened to quit (emphasis on threaten) and that Mercedes demanded behind closed doors the current engine formula as they implied, subtly, to quit if they stuck to the V8.

Which F1 engine supplier is going to join with archaic V8's? Honda came back back due to the V6, and VW were looking at a return until diesel-gate.
Mercedes may or may not have threatened to leave, we have no public outburst demanding the change or quitting. There is a massive difference.

As for Ferrari's quit threat, it was a valid response to a stupid idea....standardised engines.
http://www.crash.net/f1/news/64190/1/fe ... of-f1.html
Why should Ferrari subject themselves to a standard engine anymore than Red Bull a standard Chassis or Aero concept?
And how is this in anyway similar to Red Bull who imposed this on themselves. There is a huge difference.

Again, I agree that Ferrari and Mercedes have very much the right to deny to deliver. But criticizing Red Bull for asking competitive material does not sit right either, since asking is not forcing the other parties to positivily respond to it.

That's exactly the point...Red Bull are not "asking" for competitive material, they are demanding it or they quit.
It's unprecedented in F1.

In all honesty, this game to blame is getting very tiresome. It is so typical for a crisis: everybody blames everybody with nobody the guts to make a quick end to it, whether that end is positive or negative.

I agree, but who's really to blame? You can't blame the rules for Red Bull's lack of competitiveness anymore than you can blame the rules for their success.

[turbof1]

Fox, I'm not going to argue what the motivations were of mercedes and ferrari were to quit. Fact remains they did it all the same, just like red bull, for the same exact reason: out of self interest.

That's exactly the point...Red Bull are not "asking" for competitive material, they are demanding it or they quit.
It's unprecedented in F1

I disagree they are demanding. They have not tried to make any step to force out a deal. Not that there's any way to do that, but ultimately it remains requests. I feel you see Red Bull threat to quit as blackmailing. I personally do not since the decision whether or not to quit is not going to influence decisions on PU supply. For me this is nothing more then listing the options they have. And no, it's not unprecedented. I could go through F1's history and look up precedents, but I'm currently on a smartphone.

[bhall II]

That's exactly the point...Red Bull are not "asking" for competitive material, they are demanding it or they quit.
It's unprecedented in F1.

Don't forget about the attempts to blame others for the circumstances in which the team now finds itself...

"If Ferrari wants there to still be a Red Bull in the championship, they should give us engines," [Christian Horner] is quoted by Italy's La Gazzetta dello Sport.

[FoxHound]

Ben,

Further adding to the unprecedented nature of their demands.

Turbo,

A team threatening to quit due to terminating a critical supplier, with no back up supplier, because the original supplier is not as good as other suppliers is unprecedented.

And if not blackmail... what do we call "supply us or we quit"?

[bhall II]

You want unprecedented? I'll show you unprecedented.

Germany's Auto Motor und Sport claims that another radical idea on the table is to solve Red Bull's engine crisis by allowing the teams to use an old V8 from 2013, with rules put in place to ensure equivalent performance with the rest of the V6-powered field.

So....give Red Bull exactly what they've wanted the whole time?

"Nobody likes to go backwards, but sometimes you have got to consider that desperate means require desperate measures …I think it's extremely unlikely [we'll go back to V8s] but if we were rational about it then yes we would," Horner said.

I hate F1.

[Gaz.]

Fox, I'm not going to argue what the motivations were of mercedes and ferrari were to quit. Fact remains they did it all the same, just like red bull, for the same exact reason: out of self interest.

The only thing I could find about Mercedes and their thoughts of changing from V8s to V6T's was that if Renault were to quit, that Mercedes could not supply more than four teams and neither could Ferrari, leaving 3-4 teams with no engine as by this point Cosworth & PURE had not built any V6's. They also probably thought that the money they had spent (according to Jalliner, Merc had spent $50m by June 2011) on R&D so far would have been completely wasted, but that's speculation on my part.

[Phil]

A team threatening to quit due to terminating a critical supplier, with no back up supplier, because the original supplier is not as good as other suppliers is unprecedented.

That would be a gross simplification of the issue as a whole.

1.)
The whole relationship was strained, not only due to the lack of performance, but the reliability and perhaps lack of commitment on behalf of Renault to use tokens (perhaps due to a longterm goal of re-entering the sport as a factory team). One reason or another; sometimes relationships go bust because both parties are not in line with what or how they want to achieve it.

2.)
Mercedes publicly said mid year that to entertain the idea of supplying RedBull with engines, they would first need to terminate the one they have with Renault. So your point of slamming them for "terminating a critical supplier [who's working relationship has turned close to zero for complex reasons] without a back-up supplier" is far too simplistic.

3.)
You yourself said back on page 34 that Mercedes was apparently happy to supply RedBull. That was *after* all the public slamming that happened in the first 3rd of the season that you then later used as an argument why Mercedes nor Ferrari would want to partner with such a company... if we assume RedBull, as you did too back on page on 34, felt the same - why were they so silly to terminate said contract?

4.)
I'd also argue that the situation we have now is pretty unprecedented. But it seems many are just more interested in entertaining this soap opera of kicking around statements and making fun of them and ignoring the larger picture at hand - of which Turbo said correctly - every party is acting in their own interest. This is as much a power struggle as it is a political one. And it's not Mercedes, nor Ferrari, nor RedBull nor Renault who have caused this - it's a result of many many many variables enabled by complex rules of trying to make the sport more attractive for larger engine (car) manufacturers.

So are we going to continue this as if it's a soap opera or address the deeper issues at hand?

[FoxHound]

Oversimplification?

What did I write on page 34 that somehow makes Mercedes officially responsible for Red Bull's termination with Renault? Nor I, you, the forum at large can direct Mercedes/Red Bull strategy through posting.
That's straw clutching at its obfuscating best.

Au contraire mon ami. The situation as it stands is as I wrote.

[NL_Fer]

I think both Mercedes and Ferrari did a (Angela) Merkel here. It was probably the commercial guys at Mercedes Benz, that were attracted to improve their brands coolness and youngness with Redbulls image. Same as Arivabenne is a commercial man and gave the most desirable answer first, that Ferrari was about challenge and compatition.

But quick after that the techies and bookkeepers came and convinced them of how good Redbull chassis is and how much it would cost if Redbull wins the championshio or even would scoop away 30% of the points if they get a better engine.

[djos]

Fox, I'm not going to argue what the motivations were of mercedes and ferrari were to quit. Fact remains they did it all the same, just like red bull, for the same exact reason: out of self interest.

The only thing I could find about Mercedes and their thoughts of changing from V8s to V6T's was that if Renault were to quit, that Mercedes could not supply more than four teams and neither could Ferrari, leaving 3-4 teams with no engine as by this point Cosworth & PURE had not built any V6's. They also probably thought that the money they had spent (according to Jalliner, Merc had spent $50m by June 2011) on R&D so far would have been completely wasted, but that's speculation on my part.

Turbo was referring to the years leading up to the v6 era, the FiA was pushing for 4 cylinders engines and Mercedes and Renault both said v6's or we quit.

[dans79]

I think both Mercedes and Ferrari did a (Angela) Merkel here. It was probably the commercial guys at Mercedes Benz, that were attracted to improve their brands coolness and youngness with Redbulls image. Same as Arivabenne is a commercial man and gave the most desirable answer first, that Ferrari was about challenge and compatition.

But quick after that the techies and bookkeepers came and convinced them of how good Redbull chassis is and how much it would cost if Redbull wins the championshio or even would scoop away 30% of the points if they get a better engine.

Please stop the the conspiracy theory/ fanboy justification stuff........

[zeph]

Turbo was referring to the years leading up to the v6 era, the FiA was pushing for 4 cylinders engines and Mercedes and Renault both said v6's or we quit.

Are you sure?

I remember reading Adrian Newey insisted on V6 because a 4-cylinder could not be made to be a load-bearing part of the chassis.