So the current Red Bull engine saga rumbles on and due to the fact it appears that the average race fan despises Red Bull, Horner and co the real.implications of what is going on are being missed. This whole thing is a war between Teams and Manufactures and its been raging for quite a long time now.
Red Bull have treated Renault very shoddy like and I guess thats why people are annoyed with them. Lets remember though that the Renault engine is the reason that car is not competitive so as much as they are going about it the wrong way they have a point. Also whats not talked about much is that despite having an inferior product Renault are still hording their development tokens. Could this possibly be because they are saving them for their new forthcoming works team?
If you take that theory and couple it with the recent proposal to allow teams to be supplied with B Spec engines (for cost saving reasons obviously) then F1 is really turning into a monopoly. All the 3 main engine suppliers (I'll come to the 4th soon) will have their own works team soon. It will not be acceptable for these teams to be beat by their customers. Therefore that leaves quite a lot of teams stuck between a rock and a hard place. It actually leaves them with only 3 options
Comply:
This is the option Williams took. You take the customer service graciously offered you by the manufacturer. You even let them have shares in your team. You run their drivers and say nice things about them and your results look pretty good.
Its a resurgence! The media proclaim. No wins though, no title challenge either and in fact you'll be hard pushed to find a time they ever beat their 'parent' team.
Try:
This is the Mclaren option. Find another engine producer and try and go your own way. Problem is the current regulations are controller by the current manufactures. So basically there is no testing time, restrictions on what you cand change and huge wacking great penalties for changing things you shouldn't.
The result? Really bad results that leads to bad PR, which leads to mocking, which will probably lead to the engine maker pulling out of the sport again due to sheer embarrassment. All of which won't matter because the team will have gone bust anyway because they will not have been picking up TV money or sponsors.
Die:
Just give up. Let the big car makers have their fortnightly advert for cars and just clear off and do something else taking your talented drivers with you.
Manufacturer teams are the worst thing that can happen to F1 and the continued political playing behind closed doors makes it more and more their sport. Have a laugh at Red Bull if you like but their plight will be repeated by all eventually.
Red Bull have treated Renault very shoddy like and I guess thats why people are annoyed with them. Lets remember though that the Renault engine is the reason that car is not competitive so as much as they are going about it the wrong way they have a point. Also whats not talked about much is that despite having an inferior product Renault are still hording their development tokens. Could this possibly be because they are saving them for their new forthcoming works team?
If you take that theory and couple it with the recent proposal to allow teams to be supplied with B Spec engines (for cost saving reasons obviously) then F1 is really turning into a monopoly. All the 3 main engine suppliers (I'll come to the 4th soon) will have their own works team soon. It will not be acceptable for these teams to be beat by their customers. Therefore that leaves quite a lot of teams stuck between a rock and a hard place. It actually leaves them with only 3 options
Comply:
This is the option Williams took. You take the customer service graciously offered you by the manufacturer. You even let them have shares in your team. You run their drivers and say nice things about them and your results look pretty good.
Its a resurgence! The media proclaim. No wins though, no title challenge either and in fact you'll be hard pushed to find a time they ever beat their 'parent' team.
Try:
This is the Mclaren option. Find another engine producer and try and go your own way. Problem is the current regulations are controller by the current manufactures. So basically there is no testing time, restrictions on what you cand change and huge wacking great penalties for changing things you shouldn't.
The result? Really bad results that leads to bad PR, which leads to mocking, which will probably lead to the engine maker pulling out of the sport again due to sheer embarrassment. All of which won't matter because the team will have gone bust anyway because they will not have been picking up TV money or sponsors.
Die:
Just give up. Let the big car makers have their fortnightly advert for cars and just clear off and do something else taking your talented drivers with you.
Manufacturer teams are the worst thing that can happen to F1 and the continued political playing behind closed doors makes it more and more their sport. Have a laugh at Red Bull if you like but their plight will be repeated by all eventually.