FoxHound wrote:That's plain PR then.
This is all pretty off-topic. The whole point for bringing up Infiniti was because it was mentioned that Renault feels it didn't get enough credit when they were winning and now that they are losing, they are in the negative headlines. The point of bringing up Infiniti up was because of them being name-sponsor, hence why they got all the flowers during their 8 titles. No point in arguing what they did or didn't if the talk is about PR - nothing more and nothing less.
And about them not getting enough credit during those 4+4 titles...
Lets be clear here; The engines during the V8 and during those years of dominance were
frozen and all within the same ballpark performance wise. Yes, Renault perhaps had the least amount of power, but what they lacked there, they made up in better fuel efficiency. They also had some unique advantage they could exploit for the EBD, which they couldn't highlight due to them not wanting other teams to know what exactly they were doing and get it banned (or IP reasons). Can't really expect RedBull to praise that engine while teams are still guessing as to what exactly they are doing to gain the advantage they are (engine maps, flexing wings etc) and not have them either copied or their advantage banned. Being quiet about what you are doing well is exactly how you stay at the top. I'm actually quite certain that that RedBull with a Mercedes or a Ferrari unit from 2010-2013 would have been ahead of other teams too. So the engine is probably rather insignificant (but not entirely due to the unique engine-maps).
Then the sport moves to a new formula where the engine becomes a dominant aspect of either performing or losing. Of course Renault is going to get slammed if they are way down the order with what they delivered. Don't like it - then maybe an engine (dominated) formula is not what they want to be in (as an engine manufacturer). Honda has the same issue too; The focus is to a large degree on the engines - you win and get glory or you fall behind and suffer the consequences. Besides; wasn't it Renault who wanted this as well = new engines? I think they would have prefered 4 cylinder engines, but V6 was the middleground between what Renault and Ferrari wanted.
Anyway, this is no different to an aero dominated formula with a spec engine (or similar engines) and some aero-engineers do a better job than others. Those who do well (like Newey and his team) get a lot of glory, those who don't, well, they get swapped out.
The sport may have hurt itself by introducing a complicated token system (to avoid high costs that would be passed over to the customer teams who could not afford such engines) - but lets not forget; They all signed up for these rules. Every one of them knew what the rules were and accepted it.
